String Theory
by chris dee
Summary: Cat—Tale 44: That's not an infinite crisis. THIS is as an Infinite Crisis.
1. Prologue

* * *

_People think Infinity is a very long time. Infinity has nothing to do with Time._  
--Joseph Campbell

* * *

**Wayne Manor, Master Bedroom  
Now.**

"Is the house awfully cold this morning, or is it just me?" Selina asked, pawing through Bruce's sweaters.

Bruce rescued a black cashmere from her acquisitive hands and nodded. "Alfred might have some trick with the thermostat he didn't mention before he left. He'll be back Tuesday; we can manage with sweaters until then – but you should wear your own."

"Woof," she responded, then broke into one of Catwoman's most playful grins. "I thought you were a scientist. You can't work the thermostat in your own house?"

"I've _checked_ the thermostat," Bruce growled, repositioning to block her next grab for the sweater. "I checked the heater, the air conditioner, the vents, the generators, and the water heater; everything's fine. We must be catching a cross draft or something from the cave, it isn't that cold outside, just in here."

"Well, I'd normally have some suggestive suggestions to keep each other warm, but for now why don't I just make us some tea."

Bruce raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"Tea?" he asked skeptically.

"I feel like tea this morning."

His lip twitched. "No attempt at feline seduction and you feel like tea. Maybe I should alert the Watchtower that the fabric of reality is unraveling again."

"Do that," Selina retorted, "And be sure to tell them you made a joke, too, because on the scale of 'cosmic portents' that ranks right up there with locusts, boiling seas of blood, and—"

"Doorbell."

The austere chime of the manor's doorbell sounded a split second after he spoke, and Bruce's lip twitched before he added, "Could you get that, Kitten?"

"Is that for real or are you trying out a 'Kitten-Protocol' to save the sweaters, because if you are, Bruce, I swear to god—"

His lip twitched again and he nodded toward the window.

"I could just see the shadow of a car turning into the front drive from here. Looks like Jason Blood's."

"Some days it sucks living with a detective," she noted.

"Stop complaining, Kitten," Bruce replied with a boyish grin, "You got the sweater."

The doorbell sounded again and Selina bit back her response in order to go answer it. But the memory of that grin followed her down the stairs and she repeated to herself, "On the scale of cosmic portents that ranks right up there…"

* * *

Jason pushed the doorbell forcefully for a third time as he jostled the box under his arm, then switched to an anxious knock. His jaw was set. He was prepared for a fight. He was prepared to win that fight by any means necessary even if it meant casting a _Çömpłįąŧũŋ_ on Wayne, on Selina, and on the whole of Gotham if need be to—

"Jason Blood, the man, the myth, the legend."

Jason had knocked on the door prepared for _anything_ – except for Selina herself to answer it. He'd been expecting Alfred Pennyworth or possibly Bruce. He'd been expecting "state your business" formality, not a coy little cat smile and that playful greeting of hers, not: "Jason Blood, the man, the myth, the legend."

"Good morning," he said with forced cheer in response to Selina's usual, teasing salutation. Then his features hardened into their normal severity and he added, "I wonder if I might see you on a matter of some urgency."

"Sure, C'mon in," she answered ushering him inside. As she led him through the foyer and the Great Hall, Selina explained that Alfred was away for a few days. That's why she had answered the door, and also why Bruce wasn't up yet.

"With our respective nighttime schedules, you can imagine," she chattered lightly as they reached the morning room.

"I should have called first, I suppose," Jason demurred. "But I thought it best not to waste time. I have brought you a gift."

Selina had been moving to the chair behind the desk; she now froze mid-step and turned slowly and awkwardly back to Jason. He held out the box uneasily, and Selina affixed it – and then him – with a curious cat-smile.

"You're actually the second immortal this month to show up uninvited with a gift for me," she said pointedly. "The first one didn't work out too well."

"Be that as it may, Selina, I must insist you accept these objects. You may not understand why I am giving them, you may not know what to do with them, Bruce will undoubtedly object to your having them, but it is vitally important that you take these items and keep them."

Selina's face hardened from playful curiosity into hostile suspicion.

"If Bruce won't want them here, that means either they're some adorable-but-stolen bit of cat-kitsch, possibly 'for Candace from BW,' or else they're magic. In which case, _I don't want them either_, Jason. I hate that stuff almost as much as Bruce does; it gives me the willies. And after what that poisonous witch Zatanna did—"

"SELINA, I MUST INSIST!" Jason blurted, startling himself as much as her with the volume of his shout. "'_After what Zatanna did'_, Yes, precisely. After what Zatanna did _to Bruce_ I helped_ you._ I pledged my power to use as you wished. _You both owe me this debt_."

"With magic there's always a price," she said quietly.

"I would not wish to put it in those terms," Jason said mildly.

"You just did," Selina observed.

"I would rather you let me give you these things as a friend, as one friend gives another a gift."

Selina looked again at the box, then at Jason, then at her own sleeve wearing Bruce's sweater.

"Okay Jason, you win," she said abruptly. "Since I don't seem to have a choice anyway."

* * *

**Département de Physique Théorique, L'Université de Genève  
Geneva, Switzerland  
60 minutes from now **

"Next slide, please," Lewis Luthor ordered. He fidgeted nervously behind his podium while the teaching assistant fussed with the jammed carousel on the slide projector.

"I said next slide please," he repeated. There was a sharp click, and a picture of Albert Einstein appeared on the screen.

_"The 20th Century brought about two great theories of the universe,"_ Lewis Luthor announced, resuming his lecture. _"Two great theories which do not agree. There is General Relativity, which works with the very, very large: stars, planets, galaxies, et cetera. And Quantum Physics, which covers the very, very small, such as atoms, electrons, and quarks…" _

In the back of the lecture hall, the Dean of Scientific Studies observed the class with four of the senior faculty.

"He's such an odd fellow," the Dean observed.

_"…Relativity deals with Gravity. Quantum Physics describes Electro-Magnetism and the Strong and Weak atomic forces. Problem is: if you try to use one set of laws/calculations/principles in the other's realm, you get absolute nonsense. And there can't be two sets of rules. There can't be two different 'Everythings'…"_

"But the absolute best in the field," the senior professor told the Dean. "It's an honor to have him as a guest speaker. For the Institute to let us have him for even four lectures in the course of a year—"

"_…The answer may, in fact, be Strings. The theory is that all of existence: all energy, all matter, and even the particles that transmit energy, are all made up of these tiny filaments called Strings that stretch and vibrate like the strings of a violin. The WAY they stretch and vibrate determines what the thing is and what laws apply! Hence why it all works one way inside a star and another in an atom…_"

"I know, I know," said the Dean. "But he's so peculiar. Even at this level… I just don't think the students know what to make of him."

_"…What's really fascinating is 2,000 years before we came up with any of this, a sect of Hinduism put forth that the universe is -all- sound, just made of vibrating echoes of sound, that are constantly moving and in flux with each other…"_

"Five years from now, the students will be bragging that they heard about String Theory from Dr. Lewis Luthor, the 21st Century's Einstein."

_"…just like these Strings—_Oh excuse me," Luthor paused as the teaching assistant handed him a note. "My apologies, Class, this is a very urgent telephone call from the States. I trust it will only be a few minutes. Perhaps in the interim you will all review your notes on Brian Greene's brilliant paper 'Our Elegant Universe.'"

He left the podium, and as he passed he heard the Dean observe "I know Stephen, but a mind like that…"

Luthor's shoulders slumped. He had heard it all before, and so many times. "Lewis darling, with a mind like yours, you could be the greatest inventor the world has ever known. Lewis, sweetie, with abilities like yours, you could be President…" They didn't understand. His intelligence was a curse as much as a blessing. He was an outcast in the world, a misfit, a freak. He didn't go into science in order to better mankind; he didn't even like mankind. He liked numbers; numbers were better. Reliable. And beautiful. If you found numbers more beautiful than people, this is what you did: the highest levels of math, astronomy, and physics were your home, where you could go to be among your own kind.

So few understood that. So few would let him be, leave him to do what made him happy, working with his sublimely beautiful numbers.

He picked up the phone.

..: Dr. Luthor, :.. the receiver quacked, ..: This is Bruce Wayne. Pack a bag, I'm sending the corporate jet to bring you to Gotham ASAP. :..

Now, at last, he had a patron who let him carry on this great work.

"Of course, Mr. Wayne. This is a formal report for the board of your foundation, I take it?"

..: Yes, a formal report and then some. Bring all your notes and all the most recent data, anything else you'll need to facilitate any kind of demonstration or experiments. :..

"It will be my very great pleasure to do that, sir. I shall see you on the morrow then… 9 o'clock sharp? Yes, sir. _Au revoir_."

* * *

**Wayne Manor, Now.**

As Batman, Bruce had seen enough of the occult world to know the smell of burnt sage when it tickled his nostrils. The odor was faint as he crossed the Great Hall, but his senses were sharp and his recollection of subtle sensory detail was considerable. By the time he traced it to its source in the morning room, the charred musky aroma was as thick and sharp as his indignant rage.

He walked slowly and silently up to Jason, regarding him with Batman's deadliest glare.

"Bruce," Selina said quietly. He ignored her and went on staring hatefully into Jason Blood's equally immovable gaze.

"Testosterone, table for two," Selina murmured under her breath.

"Jason, what the hell have you brought into my house," Bruce asked finally.

There was no answer but silence for a long minute as heavy wisps of thick scented smoke curled from the smoldering sage bundle resting in an abalone shell.

"This is a Witch Orb," Jason said finally, pointing to a ball of mottled purple glass that looked like an oversized, beautifully textured, Christmas tree ornament resting on its side. "It is said to draw and trap any ill-intentioned spirits into the glass webwork that fills its interior. Bruce, this isn't just your home now, it is Selina's also, and it is important that this be here."

"No, I won't have it," Bruce hissed.

"I can keep it in my suite," Selina said, softly insistent. "We've agreed that's my space, remember, like an embassy is foreign soil. That way it's not really in 'your house.'"

He turned to her sharply.

"Like it's not really stealing to take the Sit-Hathor Necklace from the museum because the archaeologists who dug it up were nothing but grave robbers? No, we're not going to play those games, not about magic, not in this house, not— what is that on your finger?"

"Another of my gifts," Jason said calmly. "It's a moonstone. So named for the mysterious gleaming which appears whenever the gem changes its position relative to the light."

"A Feldspar mineral from Sri Lanka, I know that," Bruce spat. "It's called _Feldspar adularia_, a gemstone-quality silicate made of potassium aluminium. What's it doing in a ring on Selina's right index finger?"

"Selene is the moon goddess," Jason explained reasonably. "She is represented here by the moonstone, coming into her fullness, the crescents on each side of the center stone represent her waxing and waning."

The last filament of patience snapped and Bruce exploded in a fury of blinding motion, delivering a low brutal gut-punch and grabbing Jason's throat as he doubled over, pushing him to the wall, and pushing Selina against the desk when she tried to intervene.

"Try and stop me with a spell," he snarled, waves of Hell Month Crime-Alley hate pouring off him. "Bring your magical poisons into my house and pour them over the woman I love, and then use more magic, and more, and more when anybody tries to stop you, answer every challenge to anything you say or do or think or feel with some show of your power, more of that vile, monstrous, hateful—"

"Bruce, please stop," Selina murmured, almost a whisper, as she rubbed her hip where she'd hit the side of the desk. "Hear him out. Have you ever known Jason to go off half-cocked? Just hear him out, please. We owe him that much."

Bruce angrily released his grip on Jason's throat and turned his back on the pair of them.

"You hear him out, I'll be in the cave," he spat.

* * *

Bruce heard the distinct clip-clip of Selina's heels as she came up behind his workstation.

"Is he gone?" he graveled.

"No, he's in the kitchen."

Bruce visibly bristled, but didn't speak. Bats squeaked overhead but for several seconds there was no other noise until Selina added, "I made tea."

He grunted. Selina waited for several seconds but when no other response was forthcoming she went on, "He needs to talk toyou, Bruce. Whatever this is about, he won't tell me – which can't exactly be good news for me. And that's why I took the stuff he brought."

Bruce turned sharply, causing the chair to screech.

"A 'Witch Orb,' a moonstone ring, that was white sage he was burning – is there more?"

"Bruce, he's trying to protect me from something. I'm no happier than you are that magic is involved but—"

"IS THERE MORE?" he growled through clenched teeth.

"This pendant," she said, pulling at a thin silver cord that circled her neck and disappeared under the sweater. "He says it's not magic, it's just a gift."

Bruce stood and took the pendant between his fingers, looking down at the small flat square of light purple stone with three runic symbols raised on its surface.

"Lavender jade," he growled. "These are Chinese ideograms for… good fortune, longevity, and… love, I think. And he says this is 'just a gift,' no powers involved?"

"Bruce why would he lie? He's perfectly straightforward about the magical properties of all the rest. This one is just a gift… a gift from a friend that's pretty well connected with the big cosmic mumbo jumbo, and he shows up with a box of stuff to protect me, and he's giving me a necklace and he told me I looked very pretty this morning and that I made good tea. I'm _scared_, Bruce, and I'd rather not have the additional headache of your one-man crusade against all things pixie-dust right now, okay!"

There was a low growling rumble deep in his chest.

"I'd almost prefer you wanted to go out tonight and empty the vault at Tiffany's," he grumbled.

"Bruce, I hate what Zatanna did to you more than you will ever know. I hate that poisonous witch and her magic so much that it _impressed_ _Etrigan. _Okay? But this isn't Zatanna; it's Jason Blood, and he's not like that. Did he throw up a magic shield to keep you from leaving the morning room just now? You know he could have. He didn't. And he didn't force his way down here uninvited. He's up in the kitchen like a polite guest, drinking tea and waiting to be asked to come down to see you… Come up and talk to him, Bruce, please."

Several seconds ticked by, until finally he nodded.

"Give me a minute to change, then send him down," he graveled in the deep Batman voice.

"He came to the front door of Wayne Manor," Selina insisted, "Come upstairs, no pointy bat-ears, and _talk_ to him."

* * *

**Département de Physique Théorique, L'Université de Genève  
Geneva, Switzerland  
30 minutes from now **

"Next slide, please," Laura Luthor ordered. She fidgeted nervously behind her podium while the teaching assistant fussed with the jammed carousel on the slide projector.

"I said next slide please," she repeated. There was a sharp click, and a picture of Albert Einstein appeared on the screen.

_"The 20th Century brought about two great theories of the universe,"_ she announced, resuming her lecture. _"Two great theories which do not agree…" _

In the back of the lecture hall, the Dean of Scientific Studies observed the class with four of the senior faculty.

"Oddest woman I ever saw," the Dean observed.

_"…Problem is, if you try to use one set of laws/calculations/principles in the other's realm, you get absolute nonsense. And there can't be two different 'Everythings'…"_

"But the absolute best in the field," the senior professor told the Dean. "It's an honor to have her as a guest speaker."

"_…The answer may be Strings. All existence: all energy and matter all made up of these tiny rubber bands of energy that stretch and vibrate like the strings of a violin. The WAY they stretch and vibrate determines what laws apply!…_"

"Five years from now, the students will be bragging that they heard about String Theory from Dr. Laura Luthor."

"—My apologies, Class, this is a very urgent telephone call from the States. I trust it will only be a few minutes. Perhaps in the interim you will all review your notes on Brian Greene's brilliant paper 'Our Elegant Universe.'"

Her shoulders slumped as she passed the Dean and saw that look… It was the story of her life, that look: "Laura darling, Science is a man's world. With a mind like yours, you could be a novelist or a teacher…" They didn't understand. But finally she had a patron who would let her do the work she loved.

..: Dr. Luthor, :.. the receiver quacked, ..: This is Bruce Wayne. Pack a bag, I'm sending the corporate jet to bring you to Gotham ASAP.:..

"Of course, Mr. Wayne. This is a formal report for the board of your foundation, I take it?"

..: A formal report and then some. Bring all your notes and all the most recent data, anything else you'll need to facilitate any kind of demonstration or experiments. :..

"It will be my very great pleasure, sir. Tomorrow then… 9 o'clock sharp? _Au revoir_."

* * *

**Wayne Manor, Now.**

When Bruce reached the kitchen, Jason Blood was no longer sitting at the counter drinking tea. Instead, Etrigan the Demon looked down at the steaming mug in disgust.

**_Fetid water, bitter leaf  
Brewed for Blood by your Feline Thief?  
Brother-Demon, she has style!  
Your lady cat, she stirs the bile.  
She hates with zeal akin to yours.  
That 'gentler' sex start all good wars._**

"Etrigan," Bruce said blandly. "I thought it was Jason who wanted to see me."

**_So did he, the mortal fool.  
But Jason Blood is but a tool.  
If knew he who had sent his dream,  
Rash Jason would suspect some scheme.  
Resort then I to tricks with light,  
With purple flame, and mortal fright. _**

"So it's really you maneuvering him into giving Selina all this magic paraphernalia?"

**_By Hades, No! This urge to save  
The helpless female who  
More oft than not, you wretched knave  
Is deadlier than you,  
Such folly, Wayne, I tell you true, I leave to hero knights.  
When Jason sensed the Crisis near, he made ready for the rites  
'Tis he who takes my warning to mean 'Rally round the Cat.'  
My warning, my brother Demon, is more serious than that. _**

Bruce frowned but considered the words seriously. Finally he said, "You're an agent of chaos, Etrigan. How can any of us take what you say at face value?"

**_"Between Order and the Chaos," is it not what Pit-Boy said?  
Ra's al Ghul is no true demon, but neither is he dead.  
In his Pit he glimpsed the No-Thing in the Void beyond the Is.  
And he spoke of coming Crisis, at the heart of it your Ms._**

"That's you're answer?" Bruce sneered. "I should believe your warnings because of something Ra's al Ghul said? _That's_ your character witness, Etrigan?"

**_Chaos too in danger be! Bruce Wayne, I charge your soul:  
Harken to this warning, all Existence is a whole.  
We live or die connected: Chaos, Order, False and True  
Un-Existence lies before us all – since was broken one taboo.  
Past and Future, god and Man  
Together face this Void  
Harken well to Jason's council,  
Lest Existence be destroyed. _**

* * *

Jason swooned as the transformation completed and the last waves of Etrigan's malice shuddered through the corporeal body that was his once more. An uncharacteristically concerned Bruce Wayne helped him steady himself against— the kitchen counter? … He looked around, confused, and saw he was still in the Wayne Manor kitchen.

"I'm sorry, Bruce," he murmured. "I thought I saw… right over there, there was a pack of Hell Hounds. I needed to release Etrigan or else… Is everyone all right? How did you get him to return so quickly?"

"He went quite willingly, Jason. There were no Hell Hounds, he just wanted to talk to me."

"It was a trick? He's never been able to do that. I mean he _can_ create hallucinations when I'm tired but… This isn't good, Bruce. He's growing stronger."

"More likely you're tired. He said something about dreams, sending you dreams as a warning. Jason, when was the last time you slept through the night?"

"Nine days ago," he said grimly. "A dream alone, one time, isn't a prophecy even to the most powerful wizards, even to the Seers of Avalon. One night, two, three. It means nothing more than if you were to have the same nightmare each… Well, I guess you know about that."

Bruce glared.

"Your point?" he asked in Batman's voice.

"Nine nights is the key, three times three. If the same dream comes nine nights running, exactly the same way, that's when you know it's… it's all you were afraid of. It's not just a random fancy of your subconscious, it's… Where is Selina?"

"I left her in the cave," Bruce said frankly. "Now what's this about?"

"Something is about to happen that no earthly words can describe," Jason said quietly, "Crisis, Cataclysm, Armageddon, Apocalypse, these are all words coined by human beings to express human thoughts on the scale of human understanding. What is before us now countermines the very tenets of existence."

"That's the typical End of Days Intro, Jason," Bruce said caustically. "We get it, big-serious-evil, coming straight for us. I've heard it before, about a dozen times. Now what are the specifics this time and why-?"

**_  
_**"I don't know," Jason answered intently. "Bruce, I was born fourteen hundred and seventy eight years ago, but _I was born,_ a human man borne of a mortal woman. There are things I don't know. I've channeled magickal forces that could rip your body inside out, open a pentagram in your blood, or transmogrify the anger in your soul into searing white fire to burn the injustice from an unjust world. I have been to the center of Hell itself and looked on the spirit-essence of a damned soul writhing on the wheel. And I am telling you, I _do not know what this is_… but I know, somehow, that _she_ is at the heart of it."

* * *

**Département de Physique Théorique, L'Université de Genève  
Geneva, Switzerland  
15 minutes from now **

"Next slide, please," Laura Luthor ordered. "My brother is much better with a proton accelerator than a slide projector," she told the class. The students laughed politely, and Lewis Luthor fidgeted nervously with the jammed slide carousel. There was a sharp click, and a picture of Albert Einstein appeared on the screen.

_"The 20th Century brought about two great theories of the universe,"_ Laura Luthor announced, resuming her lecture. _"Two great theories which do not agree…" _

In the back of the lecture hall, the Dean of Scientific Studies observed the class with four of the senior faculty.

"Strangest thing I've ever seen," the Dean observed. "Twins, both PhDs—"

"And the absolute best in the field," the senior professor told the Dean. "They write all their papers jointly, and they lecture jointly. They say their brain patterns so similar they're practically telepathic."

"_…The answer: Strings. All existence: all energy and matter all made up of these tiny rubber bands of energy that stretch and vibrate like the strings of a violin. The WAY they stretch and vibrate determines what laws apply!…_"

"Five years from now, the students will be bragging that they learned String Theory from Drs. Laura and Lewis Luthor."

"—My apologies, Class, this is a very urgent telephone call from the States. I'm going to step away for a few moments. My brother will take over the lecture from here.'"

Her shoulders slumped as she passed the Dean and saw that look: "Freaks." Nobody understood what it was like, nobody but Lewis. But finally they had a patron who let them carry on their work in peace.

..: Dr. Luthor, :.. the receiver quacked, ..: This is Bruce Wayne. Pack a bag, I'm sending the corporate jet to bring you and your brother to Gotham ASAP.:..

"Of course, Mr. Wayne. This is a formal report for the board of your foundation, I take it?"

..: A formal report and then some. Bring all your notes and all the most recent data, anything else you'll need to facilitate any kind of demonstration or experiments. :..

"Tomorrow then… 9 o'clock sharp? _Au revoir_."

* * *

**Batcave beneath Wayne Manor, Now.**

Jason returned with Bruce to the cave. On entering they found Selina seated at Workstation 2, with several websites open on the various monitors, including a picture of the lavender-jade pendant on the main oversized screen that hung over the cave, the moonstone ring and the witch orb displayed almost as large on two of the side-screens.

"See, I told you," she said pointing to the pendant. "Not a molecule of voodoo-witchcraft-wicca-mojo anywhere on it. It's just a good luck charm. Thank you, Jason, that was very sweet of you."

"You are … _researching_ the magical properties of my gifts… on the _Internet_?" Jason asked, appalled.

"I wish you wouldn't use these computers for any kind of magic-related… Selina, really," Bruce stammered, just as appalled.

"You both need therapy," Selina noted, getting up. "I assume I'm to 'scat' again? Mustn't include Kitty-Cat in the secret meetings; just load her down with all kinds of enchanted gobbledygook and send her off to—"

"You can stay," Bruce said bluntly. Jason started to object but Bruce shook his head. "She's no shrinking civilian, Jason. She's Catwoman. And she's seen enough of the darkness, manmade and otherwise, to handle the truth of this."

Selina took a step backward, stunned, then flung her arms around Bruce's neck and planted a moist kiss on his cheek.

"I love you," she said emphatically. "You hear that, Jason, I'm staying."

A strange look crossed his face as he acquiesced.

"Very well, the fact is, Selina, there isn't all that much to know. I have very little in the way of definite information. I know only that—"

"Something bad is about to happen," Bruce cut in, closing the websites on the various monitors with a series of brusque keystrokes, "It involves you, and it involves magic…" He paused and his eyes grew dark as he punched in several more keystrokes. "And if it involves _magic_, we're going to find out a lot more than it thinks we can."

Several password screens later, a new image appeared on the large monitor looming over the cave:  
..:GENEVA PROJECT WAYNEFOUND #81542: STRING THEORY :..  
….Département de Physique Théorique, L'Université de Genève  
….Lionel Leiverman, Ph.D.

Bruce picked up a handset and several keystrokes later, spoke in a crisp business-like tone.

"Dr. Leiverman, this is Bruce Wayne. Pack a bag, I'm sending the corporate jet to bring you to Gotham ASAP…. Yes, a formal report and then some. Bring all your notes and all the most recent data, anything else you'll need to facilitate any kind of demonstration or experiments. _Au revoir."_

* * *

…to be continued…

-- — -- — --  
Author's Note: Brian Greene's _**Our Elegant Universe**_ is both a book and a Nova Special/DVD in our universe, and highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about String Theory.  
-- — -- — --


	2. Dimensions

**String Theory**  
_Chapter 2: Dimensions_

* * *

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Selina growled, in stark contrast to her usual bright greeting: _Jason Blood, the man, the myth, the legend. _

She stood in the front door, arms crossed, regarding her visitor with marked disapproval.

"I trust I'm not too early," Jason answered mildly as Selina stepped aside to let him enter. "We did say 8:30, did we not, with Dr. Leiverman coming at 9?"

"Yes," Selina answered, pinching her shoulders back then stretching them forward. "I'm sorry, Jason, I just had a really bad night, and now there's this big yellow ball of fire in the sky. Birds twittering out there. Dewy grass smell. Mornings are _Woof_."

Jason's brow wrinkled.

"A bad night you said. Nightmares?"

Selina glared at him, disgusted.

"No, Mr. Doom and Gloom, no nightmares, no four white horsemen, no boiling seas. I just couldn't get to sleep. He was out late and it was Joker. I… I don't sleep well, when it's Joker. But let's keep that as our secret, okay; don't tell him."

Jason gave a wry smile, wondering for the hundredth time since that first nightmare how Selina the Catwoman could be involved in a cosmic crisis.

Cats _were_ the exception to every rule in the magical world, but nevertheless. Selina was an ordinary woman who _wore a catsuit_, nothing more. She was also a rarity in Jason's travels in that her behavior towards him never changed when she learned about Etrigan. She was a good friend, a talented thief, and she had a delightful smile. How in the name of Merlin's beard could such a woman be the heart of an impending apocalypse?

Jason kept his thoughts to himself. Instead he asked, "Do you have any idea why Bruce is so insistent I be a part of this exercise?"

"Well I don't know for certain but I can guess," Selina answered, a spark of her usual playfulness emerging. "You're our connection, Jason, magically speaking. Where else are we going to go for a dime bag of mystic hoodoo?"

Jason grimaced and followed her to the morning room.

"I do wish I knew if you were joking," he noted under his breath.

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius Nail **

Whiskers and Watson trotted into the Chinese room and hopped into Selina's lap, creating a nudging, mewling, wet-nosed fur-barrier between her and the email she was trying to answer. That much wasn't unusual, both cats were adjusting to her move into the manor… Truth be told, they were adjusting a lot better than Selina herself. The whole thing had been so sudden. One day they were adversaries, the next lovers, and what seemed like only a heartbeat later: Mr & Mrs… It was… well… a lot for kitty to adjust to.

There had always been an attraction, sure. And after Joker, after that awful night, they'd turned to each other. But even so, he was Batman. All those years: wanting him, fighting him, baiting him, dreaming about what it might be like together; he was Batman. Now she was Mrs. Bruce Wayne, and she didn't really know who _Bruce Wayne _was. It had all been so sudden and so intense. Now that things were settling down to "normal" it was hard to know how to be. She knew how to taunt Batman, she knew how to support that man inside the mask when he was hurting and grieving… But now, now was… something else entirely, a completely different life, a completely different world. How could she be expected to just accept all that and trot right into this plane of existence, "Mrs Bruce Wayne" like it was nothing at all? Like it was…

_WOOF_! It would be a lot easier to make sense of her own confusion if Whiskers and Watson hadn't settled into the new arrangement like they'd been raised in the same litter. Whiskers reveled in the extra attention he was getting since the move, and Watson seemed excited by the additional company, human and feline. A sudden lapful of playful cat wasn't unusual, but what made this occurrence special was the fact that both cats wore new collars – blue collars. Selina touched the thick matte fabric gathered neatly around Watson's neck and growled.

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

Over the next 10 minutes, Selina told Jason what little she knew about Bruce's other guest, Dr. Lionel Leiverman, doing some sort of mysterious research for the Wayne Foundation. Jason tried his best to follow, but Selina's cats had appeared and were making the task all but impossible. The first time he had met Whiskers and Nutmeg, they sensed Etrigan and reacted with panic and dread. He spoke to them in Mau-im-dwo, the ancient tongue used by the priests of Bast to speak with divine and mortal cats. He explained about Etrigan, and ever since they were so intrigued with his ability to talk to them, they hovered around his chair whenever they saw him, rubbing his legs, butting their heads against his palms, purring to wake the dead, and sometimes even leaping into his lap.

"Eh yes, Bruce's years of travel," Jason managed (while Nutmeg complimented his shirt). Something about the years of travel, Selina was saying… Bruce meeting this Dr. Leiverman at Oxford, or maybe it was Princeton, while he was traveling the world preparing for the mission… Leiverman doing some kind of theoretical work, physics or metaphysics, that didn't interest Bruce at the time since it was of no use to The Mission (Bruce and that mission, Jason had known astraroth daemons with less single-minded focus)…. At that time, of course, years before beginning his work as Batman, Bruce had never seen or experienced magic…

Here Selina was interrupted (had she but known it) by Whiskers's opinion of Bruce's opinion of magic. Whiskers subscribed the basic Feline Canon and thought Bruce would benefit from its insights: _Am I afraid of it? If so, run. If not: can I eat it? If so, eat. If not: can I play with it? If so, play. If not: sleep until #1, 2, or 3 occur._

…but now that Bruce knew about magic, Selina was saying, not only knew about it but had a serious grudge against it, he'd started funding this Dr. Leiverman's research, only moderately in the past but aggressively since the Zatanna mindwipe came out…

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius Nail **

Selina squinted again at the new collars on Whiskers' and Watson's necks, searching her memory to confirm this really was the color her instincts told her it was: Batcape-Blue.

Why in all the years she had battled Batman had she not realized what a willfully stubborn prick he could be? Sure, he was rigidly inflexible on law and order issues, but he was a crimefighter. Burglary was one thing, her _costume_ was something else entirely.

She'd gone out as "Batwoman" _once_ – one time in that garish red and yellow affair – because it didn't seem prudent to go charging into battle alongside Batman and the remnants of the Justice League dressed as an escaped catburglar. The League had enough public relations problems from the anti-meta campaigns at that point, not to mention none of them had any idea what they were going up against. So appearing as Catwoman didn't seem like a good idea, and she'd made use of the costume that was available– although she drew the line at carrying a purse. A crimefighter _with a purse_, she had to wonder what possessed that Kane woman.

Anyway, they got through it. They made their stand. They defeated the great threat – which turned out to be a Human-Kryptonian gene graft gone wrong called Olsen. Batman was cleared of all charges for killing Joker, and they'd started putting their lives back together. Now that they'd found each other, Selina was more than willing to join Batman in his crusade. She really didn't consider herself a crimefighter, but he needed some way to fill the void left by Robin and Batgirl. So she would be his partner, and she would fight crime with him in Gotham, and she would move into his house and wear his ring and take his name. But she would not run around Gotham City in a yellow leotard with a red cape carrying a purse and calling herself Batwoman. A new costume was absolutely essential, and of course she wanted purple. Purple was her style, the color of royalty for the queen of the Gotham night, and a clear connection to all she had ever been as Catwoman.

She wanted purple, but he'd been campaigning for a Batwoman costume to mirror his own look, blue and gray, ever since she mentioned redoing the outfit. It started playfully enough: "How about blue" and a boyish wink. She had smiled at first – in surprise more than anything. She wasn't used to Batman being Bruce Wayne, she wasn't used to that face, to the dark aloof crimefighter having a devastatingly handsome face. She'd always found Batman sexy, but she wasn't prepared for Bruce's… _charm_. The first volleys were so subtle and coy. But now he was becoming more insistent, and the Bat's willful stubbornness was emerging from behind Bruce's easy-going charm. And that she could deal with. She might not know yet how to deal with Bruce Wayne, but Batman she'd battled long enough that she was not about to let him win.

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius 2 **

There was a loud clap of thunder, and Bruce and Selina glanced at each other for a quarter beat, waiting…

Nothing happened. They both relaxed.

And then the quiet patter of the rain was shattered by the piercing wail of a crying infant.

"I'll go," Selina sighed, resigned to yet another walk up the stairs. She had known – they had both known – that becoming parents would bring new and interesting challenges, but neither had understood how little the late nights on rooftops prepare you for three o'clock feedings or thunderstorm coddling.

"No no, I like going," Bruce insisted, leaning over and kissing her quickly on the forehead.

"But you just got back from—" she blurted, but he was already gone in one of those miraculous bat-vanishes. "—patrol," she said, stubbornly finishing the sentence anyway. Then she chuckled to herself. "Can't pass up a chance to save the damsel in distress, can you Stud?"

Reaching the nursery, Bruce had a similar thought. He did like taking care of his daughter. He liked reassuring her. He liked, for once, being able to step through the door knowing he could really solve whatever had gone wrong on the other side. The cries that sounded so alarming could be quieted with something as simple as a warm bottle, a fresh diaper, or a plush cat called Muffindrop.

He glanced down into the crib in awed wonder at how he'd ever come to be standing there. He and Selina - Catwoman, of all people - married. He'd always taken pride in his "mission" - in the work that he did saving his city, and even the world from time to time. For years he thought that was the only contentment he would find in his life. But he was wrong. He knew now that true joy came not from the work he did but from the love he'd finally found. He loved Selina, and now that love had blessed them both with this amazing miniature person, a living embodiment of their love and their life together. He'd worried that Selina's pregnancy would temper his work, that the mission would suffer because of his family obligations. But the first time he picked up his newborn daughter, he knew the opposite was true. The birth of his child had strengthened his resolve in ways he never could have imagined, because he was no longer saving the city for the sake of the millions of innocents out there; he was saving the city for his little girl…

"Hey sweetie," he said softly, patting his daughter's hair. "Nothing to be frightened of, Helena, it's just a thunder storm."

"DaBa" she answered.

He smiled at the non-riddling nonsense.

"You said it, Kitten. Want to come downstairs?"

"Poohbamee," she answered.

Bruce smiled even broader and picked her up. She had her mother's eyes, and he was even more helpless faced with the junior version than the originals.

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

Jason's first challenge of the day was helping Selina entertain Dr. Leiverman while they all waited for Bruce. Having traveled the world over the course of centuries acting as courtier and diplomat, rascal and rake, Jason Blood had never met a man like Lionel Leiverman. The man seemed to have no social skills at all. He could talk only about his work. And while Jason had known many obsessed workaholics long before those terms came into being, none of them had been theoretical physicists.

"Alternate dimensions!" Leiverman said excitedly. He was talking to Selina and he was blind to what anyone with working eyes should have been able to see: that here was a woman who hadn't slept the night before. However intelligent Selina Kyle might otherwise be, she could hold no thought at this moment beyond the taste of her coffee. And this man was throwing alternate dimensions at her.

"The alternate dimension, or parallel universe if you prefer," Leiverman went on, oblivious to his listener's plight, "is not this science fiction story where the Justice League is evil and hearts are located on the right side of the body. The alternate universe is a function of subatomic random possibilities; an electron orbits the nucleus at 30-degrees instead of 35 and poof – alternate reality. All probabilitiescontained in this universe or that one; that is the sublime beauty of quantum infinity. The critical mass for a new reality is not the large object, like a man making a conscious decision to go right instead of left at a fork in the road, but a random dice game that is played among the infinitesimally small."

Selina stifled a yawn and managed a polite nod.

"So not a separate universe where Lex Luthor has hair," she said, to show she was listening.

"No," Bruce answered, entering briskly and shaking Dr. Leiverman's hand. "So sorry, I got tied up with all kinds of things this morning," he explained. Then he turned to Selina and completed the thought. "Chromosomes are too big, so active hair follicles on the former president aren't a candidate for a separate universe, right Doc?"

"Actually they are," Leiverman answered happily, delighted to have an informed student to enlighten. "A Dr. Lee Havnok did a paper on this only last year. We called it the 'Stalin's moustache' theorem: At the _chromosomal_ level, yes, you are right, it is much too big to generate a quantum universe. But the chromosomes result from the random occurrence when one particular sperm out of millions fertilizes the egg, and this can easily be altered by the chance variations in subatomic orbits."

Selina's glassy eyes met Jason's while Bruce and Leiverman chatted enthusiastically. "Dime bag of mystic hoodoo," she mouthed wearily.

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius Nail **

Watson was curled on the chair opposite Selina, watching her curiously. "You should be on my side, pal," she told the cat. "A little feline solidarity, it's not that much to ask."

In the manner of cats, Watson responded to this criticism by shutting his eyes and resuming his nap.

"No no," she told him. "I know that trick. Look at this, just have a look and tell me if you approve?" She held up the pencil sketch that had fallen from her book, having been substituted overnight for her regular bookmark. "Look at those ears, that's a bat-cowl. Look at those ears, your ears are much better aren't they?"

Watson purred – for no cat would argue about the superiority of his appearance – but he declined to open his eyes. Selina rolled the sketch into a ball and threw it at him.

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius 19 **

Dickie Grayson hung out in the hippest little hideaway in the Northern Hemisphere (the legendary Batcave, underneath Stately Wayne Manor, dontcha know!) twirling the small plastic card between his fingers. What a drag; 16 years of age and he'd just scored the mother lode of liberating documentation - his very own driver's license. He should have been out crusin' the streets of ol' G.C. in the trippiest of transports: the Batmobile! But no, old man Wayne had put the kibosh on that plan; he'd just informed Dick that - perfect score on the driving test or not - Dick was gonna be required to take some 9-week super-special vehicular training before he'd be allowed to feel behind the wheel of the old 'Mobile.

Man, what happened to his old pal Bruce? Back in the early days, it was just the two of them; the Dynamic Duo! They'd fight for truth and justice, put a hurting on the baddies, buck the establishment, then boogie 'til dawn! But now? Now Bruce was _becoming _the establishment! It was like at 12:01 in the AM on the day of Bruce's 30th, everything took a turn for the worse. Maybe he'd been right all along - everyone over thirty was worthless!

Nah, it wasn't the age thing, Dickie knew. It was _her_.

Alright, check this: there was no denying that Catwoman was one grade-A, prime-cut female. One peep at the "evening wear" and it was obvious the girl was righteously hot-to-trot. There wasn't a single, red-blooded male in all of the Americas that could spot that magnificent bod, wrapped in the tightest of purple threads, and ignore the obvious stirrings - and ol' Bruce seemed to have it worst of all. Dick couldn't blame him there; hell, even _he'd_ had a fantasy or twenty about a sweaty encounter with the Purloining Pussycat. But that's all it ever should have been! A one-time (okay, probably more like four- or five-time) encounter, a quick wham-bam-Thank-you-ma'am and then back to the business of saving the world for ALL the groovy chicks out there.

But then, the old man gets it in his head that she's "more than that" and suddenly they're thrown back into this Leave It To Beaver nightmare where Bat and Cat (scratch that: Bruce and "S_elina_") are upstairs yakking about china patterns and engraved invitations, and good ol' Dickie's left down in the 'Cave dreading a future where Robin the Boy Wonder has to wait outside the bathroom for "Mistress Catty" to finish washing her hair!

And Barbara - the only chick in this whole scene that's supposed to be part of the in-crowd - is absolutely useless in the "pointing out the obvious _cat-_astrophe" department. One look at the glittery finger weight and she starts "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" like a third-grader seeing her first puppy. Not that Dickie was at all surprised by _that_ turn of events - Babs always was the nattering-nincompoop of the Gotham Nighttime Scene. But even good old stoic Alfie's gone all blubbery happiness over the upcoming nuptials…

Does no one else catch the hitch here? Hello! She's Catwoman! (Holy Horrendous Hoodwinks, Batman!) She's one of the Bad Eggs! And now Batman's letting the Felonious Feline into his house, into his life, into his bed, and into the _ 'Cave, _but he's nixing Dickie's chance at a turn behind the wheel? It was Bizarro-world, Gotham Style! What was next: trading in the Batmobile for a Studebaker and turning the disco-room into a baby-shack?

Dick thought, and not for the first time, that maybe it was time to blow this pop stand and groove on to greener pastures; seek his own fabulous fame and fortune as a solo act. He certainly couldn't fathom wasting any more of his time living in Kyle-Wayne Manor with Papa, the Missus and any broodlings that were sure to follow.

This was definitely the worst thing to hit the Gotham crimefighting scene since Batgirl first puttered up on her little motor-scooter and giggled "Hey there!"

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

Jason Blood was aghast at what he was hearing:

All matter and energy made up these vibrating filaments called Strings; Fine.

The way they vibrated determined what it was they made up; Sure why not.

The way they vibrated determined what _cosmic laws_ applied – and then something about gravity and electromagnetism that Jason didn't quite follow but Bruce seemed terribly excited about. And then, _THEN_ this outlandish suggestion that magick might be nothing more than a way of temporarily altering the Strings' movement so that _different_ cosmic laws applied?

"It frames the so-called 'supernatural' in science…" Leiverman was saying.

Jason looked at Bruce and could sense what the premise really meant to him: _…And gets this grossly unacceptable thing called 'magic' into a realm where it could be dealt with._

"You think you can control the magickal forces?" he asked, white astonishment blotting out the usual sarcasm in his voice.

"No," Bruce said simply, "I think it's already controlled. You all are. You're operating in exactly the same universe as the rest of us; you just don't know it yet. The same rules – the same _laws_ – apply. You're different only in that through magic you've figured out how to _change venue_, but there are still laws in place, judges and punishments if they're broken. That's why there's always a price."

"An… intriguing supposition," Jason said mildly. "Would you excuse me?"

He got up and left the room, Nutmeg trotted after him and Whiskers after her. Selina looked to Bruce, winked, and joined the procession. "Be right back," she said lightly from the doorway, but as she turned into the hall, her polite hostess smile melted into a concerned frown.

"Jason, I hope you're not offended. He doesn't mean to be rude, you know. It's… well, I'm just hearing all this for the first time, but the idea, even the remotest possibility that magic isn't something outside of scientific thought and analysis, it has to be manna from heaven for him. Are you very angry, Jason?"

"I'm not angry, Selina. I am not offended or threatened by the possibilities suggested by this 'theory.' I am… in _awe_. Selina, I have kept silent about many things since the account of Bruce's mindwipe became known, but the fact is, magician though I am, I sympathize more than either of you know. I respect Bruce and I am fond of you personally, Selina. But that is not why I… empathize as I do. The truth is… that it's happened to me… countless times. Twenty minutes Zatanna took from him, god lord, there are entire _months_ in my past I can't account for. And false memories, I know Etrigan has crafted some but I've no way of knowing which they are, nor is there anything I could do about it if I did."

"My god, Jason, I had no idea," Selina whispered.

"How could you? How could anyone know what it is to have your soul knitted to a demon of hell?"

"This must all strike you as a… a very selfish and self-important overreaction then."

"No," Jason said, a forceful compassion creeping into his voice. "I admire Bruce a great deal; I always have. And I abhor the way Zatanna has abused her powers. I've also been worrying about it since the day we watched him take his 'revenge' for lack of a better word."

"Jason, all he did was have Martian Manhunter freeze her telepathically for an hour, 'taking' an hour of her life in return for the 20 minutes she took from him."

"Oh it's not that, I've no complaint with his action. There was an elegance in what he did, truly poetic justice. No, it was something he said to her that day that sparked my concern: _the rule of three_, use magicks to perform any negative action upon another and it will be revisited upon you threefold.

"Selina, the act of a Martian telepath and a human man don't count, karmically speaking. Zatanna _still_ has an accounting to make for Bruce, _and_ for Dr. Light, and what she did to that Top fellow in Keystone City… for _any_ abuse of her powers. For any… Who knows? We can't know everything that she's done – even she likely doesn't know, magically speaking, exactly what it is she has done.

"Don't you see, all Zatanna does is talk backwards. Selina, however else he may be biased, Bruce is completely correct about one thing: with magick there is _always_ a price. All magic-users must work to cultivate their power, there is cost and payment, balance and counterbalance, always, even to…" He paused, smiled, and snapped his fingers, and a tiny white flame appeared at his fingertips. "…Very useful if you forgot your flashlight in the car."

Selina smiled, and he went on, his tone becoming serious again.

"In the very crafting of a spell, you must grapple with the forces you are using and how you put them to use. And if you've tested the limits, crossed some line, you know instantly. It's like hoisting a heavy weight with your back instead of your legs… You won't get far before your body tells you you're making an error.

"And all Zatanna does is talk backwards. It's like… oh, how to explain this. It's like quoting a poem compared to writing one. Speak the result you desire without any thought to… For years Zatanna has channeled the magickal forces this way without any conscious thought of what forces she manipulates in which way,– a naïve college student racking up thousands of dollars in credit card debt because it's so easy to get them and use them. And never quite realizing the _true_ costs being incurred."

"My heart bleeds," Selina said coldly.

"I wouldn't expect you to be sympathetic," Jason said mildly. "But I worry none the less."

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius 116 **

Catwoman pretended to be asleep throughout the scene in the cave… _"I thought we could talk this out,"_ Flash was saying. _"You thought wrong,"_ Batman answered, picking her up. She remained still, limp in his arms, through _"Please Bruce, they were just trying to protect Sue," "Well now they need to protect themselves,"_ and _"If the Secret Society remembers what you did to them, they probably remember why you did it."_ She remained still and limp as he turned his back on the Justice League and carried her up the stairs… Still until she heard the click of the clock passage closing behind them. Then she leaned her head against his chest and hugged him lightly.

"Go back to sleep," he said with a soft grunt.

"I wasn't sleeping," she said. "I heard the whole thing. Bruce, what in god's name is going on with you and the League?"

"You don't want to know," he graveled.

"Maybe not," she whispered as he carried her up the steeper staircase to the manor bedrooms. "But I know you shouldn't be alone tonight." She eyed him seductively, her fingers tracing the symbol on his chest. She stared directly into his eyes, seduction mixing with promise and a hint of vulnerability. Breathlessly, she uttered, "Stay with me."

At the top of the stairs he froze, eyes glancing back and forth between the hallway to the guest suite and his own bedroom door. He hesitated between the two directions and glanced down at her cradled in his arms.

"You're hurt," he murmured. "You lost a lot of blood."

"Not that much." She teased, but even the playful banter was different. It was like that first kiss on the rooftops - the realization that maybe there _could_ be more, that they could make it work. He wanted to - god, how he wanted to - but there were so many questions, so many barriers…

"Just stay with me for a while. We both need a warm touch more than rest right now." There was such a yearning, almost pleading look in those deep green eyes that he found himself getting lost. He was back on that rooftop, her body pressed hard against his own, lips and tongues entwined.

His lip twitched briefly, and he turned right into his own bedroom.

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

When Jason returned to the study, Dr. Leiverman had set up a line of ritual candles of different colors. Behind each was a hinged trio of mirrors, and before each was a strange gold cylinder with a number of gears and lenses protruding from it.

"Fascinating," Bruce was saying, looking through one of the lenses. "Jason, what's yellow represent for you people?"

Jason was surprised by the abruptness of the question, but he answered it.

"If by 'you people' you mean Englishmen, yellow jerseys indicate that the Watford Football League is playing a home game," Jason said dryly. "But if you mean mystics, there are many systems linking colours with specific magical energies. In the Malbrough tradition, yellow is tied to attraction and persuasion. According to Cunningham & Harrington, yellow is the intellect, eloquence, and the power of thought—"

"Why?" Bruce interrupted.

"I beg you pardon?"

"Why? Why does yellow equal persuasion or thought? You guys go to all this trouble to figure out what colors are 'linked' to 'specific magical energies,' but you don't find out why? What's the connection? You don't come up with any underlying principles of why anything works?"

"I, eh-," Jason stammered. "Why it works is… is the essence of the magickal force."

"Jason, yellow light is made of the same stuff as red light. You know the reason it's yellow? The wavelength is about 570 nm. When that increases to around 590, it looks orange, if it keeps going to 650, it's red. So what's the connection, what is it about a 570 nm wavelength that helps you screw with somebody's head?"

"Bruce, I really don't—"

"The _flames_ on all of these candles are yellow, by the way, because there's sodium in the wick and in the wax. The color of a flame depends on the material being burned. Each atom or molecule has certain special frequencies (that means _colors_) at which it absorbs and emits light, just like a musical instrument has special frequencies at which it absorbs and emits sound. See what I'm saying?"

"I cannot imagine what you are saying," Jason said sourly.

"Sodium atoms glow yellow very brightly when they're heated; yellow light is their favorite color to emit. This particular shade of yellow is called the 'sodium D line' because of the electron orbits involved in the sodium atoms before and after the light is emitted."

"Fascinating, I'm sure. But Bruce, this has nothing to do with magick."

"How do you know? Jason, none of you have ever bothered to find out! Your version of science seems to spend all this time working out what yellow does, but you don't even know what 'yellow' _is_."

"It's the same with the herbs and the minerals, as well," Leiverman added. "The mystics' version of science resembles our 'categorical' disciplines: classifying phylum and species, indexing the properties of each with great precision. But practically nothing of what we would consider inquisitive study, no research into the greater mechanisms."

"Dr. Leiverman, would you excuse us for a moment, I'd like a word with Bruce in private."

Bruce grunted, Leiverman left, and Jason Blood placed his palm over one of the lit candles, causing the flame to rise instantly and dance around his hand.

"May I remind you, Bruce, that there is a demon of Hell caged inside my soul? I don't have to investigate why my magicks work, I _know_ why they work. They're Evil. Good and Evil are very real forces in the universe, Bruce. The evil, at least, I feel on a daily basis. Ask Selina if you don't want to take my word for it. She felt Etrigan's malice when we joined hands for the seeing."

"I don't doubt what you feel, Jason. I just don't know that it means what you think it means, what all magic-users think it means. Go outside and stand in the sunlight, it feels warm. That's very welcome if it's 17 degrees and you've been tramping through the snow; the warmth feels wonderful. Go to Florida in August, it's a different story; that same sunlight is not your friend. How it feels is subjective, Jason, but it's all solar radiation; it's all light produced by the fusion of hydrogen and helium in the core of a yellow star 93 million miles away. It all gets here at the speed of light, 186,282.4 miles-per-second, because _that_ is the universal speed limit that _nothing_ gets to break."

Jason cleared his throat.

"What do you hope to accomplish by this, Bruce?"

"Something is broken isn't it? Something large and powerful and destructive is raging out of control, probably because one of you let a genii out of the bottle without knowing what you were dealing with."

"And how is citing the speed of light going to—"

"'I was born fourteen hundred years ago,'" Bruce quoted, "'I've channeled forces that could open a pentagram in your blood but even I don't know what's coming. Jason, you came to _me_ with this. What did you _think_ I was going to do?"

"I came because I was concerned about Selina and she happens to live in your house. It was not a 'consulting detective' scenario, Bruce. I was not bringing 'a case' to Batman's attention."

"Well you've got my attention anyway. You, Etrigan, and Ra's all show up in my house in the span of a few days, all screaming 'Crisis' and pointing at Selina. Like it or not, you've _got_ my attention."

"Bruce I—"

"Of course you're the only one of those three who found it necessary to put a magic ring on her finger."

"I did what I felt was necessary."

"And now I'm doing what I think is necessary. Are you going to help or not?"

"That depends. Is my help to consist of more than listening to dubious theories about magick and strings?"

"You know it is."

"Then I am at your disposal."

Bruce grunted.

"Shall we call the others back in then?"

Bruce said nothing at first; he was looking down at a burning candle.

"Jason," he asked softly. "In the magic realm, what does purple mean?"

"Purple is power. Purple intensifies power, it denotes the magickal force made manifest. In short, purple is magick itself."

"I see."

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius Nail **

Whiskers and Watson wrestled playfully on the floor, and Selina was pleased to see the two cats getting along so well. She had replaced their blue collars with purple ones and made her own sketch for a cowl with a proper set of cat-ears. She had yet to find a good place to leave it where Bruce was sure to see.

She'd tried approaching him directly and that got her nowhere. "Hey, it's your costume. Design it however you want." A totally unconcerned brushoff – but the hints kept coming. So she'd tried answering in kind, sneaky hint for sneaky hint. But her first attempts had all misfired. She didn't know the routine of the house yet, and Alfred kept finding her sketches folded into Bruce's washcloth in the master bath or rolled in his coffee mug in the cave. He would return them to her with a quiet cough and a polite "I believe this must be yours, Madame."

It was an unfair advantage. It was his house, and his butler, and his cave. She was outmatched every way she turned, but she simply could not let him dictate something so personal and basic. Her costume expressed who she was and if she gave in on this first clash, what would that mean for their life together?

And as for Alfred, he might have been Bruce's butler much longer than he'd been hers, but she _was_ lady of the house now, and he'd better learn whose side to take on domestic issues. This was all about her new life with Bruce and her new home. And it didn't get much closer to home for Selina than what she wore as Catwoman!

She sneezed, as if allergic to the very idea of _Batman_ dictating her nighttime persona, and reached for a Kleenex. Instead of the supple tissue she expected, her fingers felt fabric. She turned and a blue fabric swatch was protruding from the box.

It occurred to Selina that, in addition to being purple, her new costume must also have claws.

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Here and Now **

There was a wave of warm dizziness and Selina moved to steady herself against the wall outside the study until it passed. She was surprised by the sudden support that materialized under her elbow.

"Hey, you alright?" Bruce was asking, and gentle fingers touched the side of her face.

"Fine," she assured him sincerely. "Little gravity shift. No sleep plus no breakfast."

"We'll get you something to eat before we proceed then. Jason's gone to his apartment to get supplies. We've got an hour easy."

"Supplies for what?" Selina asked, raising an eyebrow.

Bruce said nothing, but his eyes darkened and Selina felt the unmistakable tingle of Batman's presence.

"No, you can't be serious. Magic hoodoo in _your house_?"

He looked off to the side, remembering a phrase of hers from countless vaults and rooftops. "_Those rubies don't belong to you…"_

"Technically," he graveled.

"I have a very bad feeling about thi—," she started to say, when she was cut off by a slow, tender kiss. "mm, never mind," she mumbled.

"You know I love you," he whispered – the voice too soft to make a Bat-or-Bruce determination, but he was still projecting that Bat-aura that Selina did not associate with loving assurances. "I've always loved you," he added – this time in an undeniable Bat-gravel.

"I'm going to cut you off right there," she interrupted. "Because the next phrase after that is going to be something like _'no matter what happens'_ and I don't do those; they're bad luck. If we're going to go dancing on a hellmouth this afternoon, 'Know I always loved you' is not the way to go right now. 'You're a jackass that can't be trusted to make a tuna sandwich' is the note to end on."

"You're an impossible woman," Bruce noted.

"That's better."

"No, it's not. It's frustrating as hell. Selina, I wasn't going to say _'no matter what happens' _or anything like it. I just… I wanted to ask you to take off that ring."

"The moonstone? From Jason?"

He nodded.

"Yes. I can't stand your wearing it. It's… It's magic and it's on your finger, I really can't stomach it. Please take it off and put this on instead."

She looked down and saw a familiar glint of pink sapphire.

"That's the 'I don't know if I'll ever want to be married' ring from the MOMA opening," she observed with an amused smile.

Bruce did not look amused. Instead he touched his tongue to the inside of his lips, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, took a breath, and glared.

"If _that's_ what it's going to take to get that moonstone off your finger—" he managed, his stomach clenching in violent, lurching twists. He took another labored breath, when Selina shook her head.

"No, that's not what I was saying," she said hastily, concern swallowing the amusement. "Bruce, I was not asking you to— Look, if it means that much to you, of course I'll take it off."

She removed the ring silently and placed it in the center of his palm, closing his fingers around it, then leaving her hand over his.

"I've always loved you too," she whispered before quickly adding "But you're a jackass who can't make a tuna sandwich unsupervised, and I need lunch."

"Wait, No!" he growled, grabbing her wrists forcefully as she turned to go.

"Have I ever mentioned how much I _hate_ that," Selina hissed.

He said nothing for a long moment but his grip tightened.

"You didn't take the ring, the sapphire," he said then, releasing his hold and sounding embarrassed.

She held out her left hand, palm up, in an impatient 'hand it over' gesture. Rather than place the ring in it as she had done, Bruce turned her hand gently, caressing the red marks his fingers had left on her wrist.

"I'm sorry about that," he murmured. Then he slid the ring smoothly onto her finger, turned, and left.

* * *

∞ ** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius Nail **

Selina found the hot shower wonderfully relaxing. She'd explained the costume frustrations to ReflectionTwit and then repeated it to the ShowerScrubbie, and that too had been wonderfully relaxing. Having vented while pulses of warm water soothed the tension from her neck and shoulders, she began to see the humor of the situation. It was rather endearing, really. He was so stubborn. It was so _Batman_, it just had nothing to do with taking jewels from Cartier. You had to love him for it. By the time those warm pulses of water massaged the shampoo from her hair, Selina was considering a compromise. Purple could look very sharp in contrast with that deep blue of his, a purple catsuit and a blue batcape maybe…

She turned off the showerhead, shook the excess water from her hair, slid open the glass shower doors and reached for a towel. Her hand felt only air where there should have been a stack of thick folded bathtowels. She wiped wet film from her eyes with the back of her hand and peered at the table where Alfred always left the towels – they were gone. She reached for the hook where a terry robe always hung – and there, suspended on a hanger, was the only fabric in the room in which she could wrap herself – there on the hook was a dark blue batcape.

∞ **Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

Jason didn't _like_ the idea of staging another seeing ritual with Selina so Dr. Leiverman could test and quantify magical reverberations on the physical plane. But he didn't like the idea of oblivion either, even if it would take Etrigan off his hands. All existence winking into nothingness versus humoring one of Bruce's wild theories, it was no contest. Jason had known countless "Men of Science" over the decades, and most of their ideas had been preposterous. Just look at electricity: they harness a new energy and think it will cure everything from tuberculosis to gout. Still, every now and then one of those men of science came up with something truly extraordinary – and on each and every occasion they were ridiculed. _At best_ they were ridiculed. Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Galileo. Sometimes they were persecuted, sometimes executed, all because their ideas threatened a small mind's view of how the world really worked.

Jason had seen it play out enough times that he could put his own doubts aside for one day and let Bruce conduct his experiment. He answered every question politely and fully: the bowl he brought was chased silver lined with mother of pearl, a sacred vessel salvaged from the siege of Antioch by the warrior mages of Cilicia. The liquid was water of Avalon obtained from that enchanted isle by Lyle, the present seer, in payment for the return of an important relic called the _ leabhar seun_, which she had foolishly lost to him. The bottle? Cobalt blue with a silver cap, carved with Celtic knots; that he picked up on Ebay for 14.95.

When these preliminaries were completed: a small table set up for the ritual with two chairs, one for him and one for Selina to sit opposite each other around the bowl, and Lionel Leiverman's incomprehensible circle of lenses and sensors positioned around them like a mystic circle from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jason took his place at the table and nodded curtly for Selina to do the same.

She glanced at Bruce as if she expected never to see him again, touched a finger to her lip and then flicked it outward. Jason took this to be a none-too-furtive attempt to blow a kiss, and he occupied himself with a smudge on the table rather than deigning to see Bruce's response. When at last Selina took her seat, Jason held out his hands, palms up.

"Ready to begin?" he asked kindly.

She nodded and placed her hands down on his, palm to palm.

Jason noticed her right hand no longer bore the moonstone ring, and her left now wore a large pink gem – a gem which, to Jason's eye, advertised its cost and the wealth of the donor. Jason turned slowly to Bruce, remembering that, angry as the man had been about the sage and the witch orb, it was the discovery of that ring which brought about the violent outburst. Now Bruce merely glared, not with the hell-month hatred Jason had seen that day, but with a lifeless, isolated, emptiness. He began to wonder if—

"AEIEE"

—when the thought was cut short by a scream.

**_Puking Light and Mortal Cat  
What foulness, reeking thing is that?_**

Selina had pulled her hands away and sat there, chest rising and falling as she labored for breath. She looked dazed and deathly pale.

"What is it?" Bruce yelled.

Selina ignored him and looked to Jason, her eyes dull with a dead horror.

"What the hell was that?" she asked.

**_Hell is Home, you Feline Tart!  
Speak not of Hell, we have no part  
In making of… whate'er that be  
That thing is… vile. Like your espirit. _**

"Selina, what happened," Bruce was saying, "What did you see?"

"I'm going to throw up," she answered, running from the room.

"Jason, somebody tell me, what happened? What did she see?"

"I don't know. _I_ saw nothing, but Etrigan… seems to find it quite disgusting whatever it was. He's absolutely retching; I've never heard him like this. Usually if it disgusts Etrigan it's a positive force: joy, hope, faith…"

"I don't see Joy, Hope, or Faith making Selina throw up, do you?"

_"BRUCE?!"_ Selina called loudly from some distant part of the house. The urgency of her call yanked them all from their chairs instantly.

Bruce motioned for Jason and Leiverman to stay and bolted out of the study, heading toward the dining room. He heard the voice from far down the hallway, a voice twisted with rage and fear—

"_YOU_ are not the Batman! **_I_** am the Batman! Now _Get **Out!**_"

—and ran faster, the haunting familiarity of that voice slamming into his brain like a spike. It wasn't just the voice, but the words themselves that tore at his memory. He'd heard all of this before… Dread and realization built together until he reached the door and saw it:

"You were too weak and too cowardly. You couldn't defeat Bane. He broke you like a twig."

There it stood – "AzBat" – the hulking armored monstrosity Azrael had made of his mantle. What was going on here? He was watching it unfold both visually and in his memory simultaneously. What was Jean Paul doing? And where did he get that bastardization of the suit? Bruce had destroyed that thing long ago…

Bruce was ripped from his thoughts and dove to the floor as the thing pointed its metallic talon at him and shot a barrage of deadly shuriken. Bruce rolled for cover behind the sideboard and looked around for some object to use as a shield. There was a heavy silver tray, if he could just reach it—

—When he noticed nothing was happening.

The attack had stopped.

He looked again, and nothing stood where AzBat had been. The room was empty.

Bruce proceeded cautiously into the drawing room.

"Hey, neat trick," Selina said mildly as he entered. "You just went that way."

He'd seen that look on her face before; it was that 'humor-them-and-handle-them' look normally reserved for the Iceberg on a Saturday night.

He looked around.

"I did?" he asked, a hint of Bat-growl creeping into his voice as he slipped instinctively into Detective-mode, taking in the details for examination later.

"_Other_ you," she said. "And Pheromones, flat out crazy as I've ever seen him, screaming about his father and firing those pointy ninja bat-shurikens at my Turner." She pointed at a large stormy seascape with several bat-shaped blades protruding from its canvas and frame.

"As I recall it was _my_ father he was screaming about," Bruce said, examining one of the shuriken embedded in the painting. "And he was firing them at my head."

"Well your head looked fine," Selina answered matter-of-factly. "But he hit my Turner."

"_Your_ Turner?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If I'd ever hit this place when I was working, that's what I would have taken. Now look what the idiot did to it."

"I'll remember that at Christmas," Bruce said wryly. "We have other problems right now."

"Yeah, I'd say so," Selina agreed.

Jason reached the door and cleared his throat. "Bruce, I trust you won't mind, I took the liberty of encasing Dr. Leiverman in a _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå _and moving him to the relative safety of the morning room. He believes he is watching Selina and I use a Ouija board. I thought that would be best before he saw something that would be… difficult to explain."

"Difficult to explain," Selina repeated with a sickly smile. "Jason, you have no idea."

"I believe I do, seeing as Batman had come into the room oblivious to our presence, and opened the grandfather clock releasing a hail of poisoned darts." Jason lifted his forearm to reveal two of these still sticking out of his wrist. "Which would be problematic were it not for my unique physiological condition."

"Any theories what's going on here?" Bruce asked testily.

Jason paused thoughtfully, then turned to Selina.

"I suppose the first step in evolving any sort of theory about that is to ask what it is you saw."

She pointed around the room as she announced "Batman. Pheromones. Batty ninja stars in my Turner."

"Before that," Bruce cut in. "When you ran out of the study."

"Oh… that," she shuddered. "I don't know what it was. I'd just taken Jason's hands, I felt Etrigan, I thought of the last time we did this, watching Zatanna."

"That may have been Etrigan's suggestion," Jason put in. "You hate Zatanna, it would be like Etrigan to remind you of that day in order to awaken thoughts of hate and vengeance which he – well – he finds quite attractive in a female in ways it would be difficult to describe."

Selina shrugged, a rooftop shrug that said she didn't really care if there were laws against breaking and entering, she was who she was, take it or leave it.

"Anyway," she resumed, "I thought of that day watching Zatanna, I glanced into the water and—" She broke off and made a frustrated vibrating gesture with both palms along the side of her head. "NO Idea how to describe it. It was…"

"Evil?" Jason prompted, "Good? Hurried? Pleasant? Sin? Salty? Anything, try anything, Selina. The first words that spring to mind."

"A spark."

"What?"

"It was a spark… like an electrical spark from plugging something into an outlet, but _not_ a 'shock.' It was more… honey. There was something… _sweet_ about it."

She looked at Bruce, who hadn't spoken.

"A spark is fire," he noted. "Was it hot?"

"You're being a bit literal, Bruce," Jason answered, "I suspect—"

"No he's right," Selina said, her brows knitted. "It _was_ a fire – not hot – but it's _burning_ somehow – not big open flames, not _yet_, but it's… smoldering."

Bruce studied her carefully, trying to lock into her description. "Like that spark between a match and a matchbook, just before the match-tip catches fire?"

"I - yeah, something like that…" Selina agreed weakly. "No," she said suddenly, "More like 'Firemen think they put out a fire, but there's still something going on inside the walls, buried in the insulation, that nobody is aware of. They all go home thinking everything is fine, it bursts into flame overnight, tomorrow we find a big heap of ash where the Chrysler Building used to be."

"A spark, smoldering," Jason repeated.

A loud ear-splitting KREEEEEEE of Black Canary's Canary Cry erupted several rooms away, followed by an unearthly crash and angry shouts.

The three of them ran back into the study just in time to see Hawkman pick up the grandfather clock and bash Batman over the head with it.

* * *

… to be continued…


	3. KREEEE

**String Theory**  
_Chapter 3: KREEE_

* * *

KREEEEEEE

The ear-splitting wail of Canary Cry echoed through Wayne Manor while Selina marched calmly through the chaotic battle as if through holograms. She offered a light fingertip wave to the chimera of a mind-controlled Martian Manhunter swinging Superman into a headlock.

"Morning Boys" she said sweetly.

A pink, fin-headed alien lifted Hawkman by the throat and yanked the wings from his back in a single vicious stroke.

"My favorite part," Selina noted. "Now cue the clock."

As he had every 43 minutes since the anomalies began, Hawkman picked up the grandfather clock and brought it crashing down onto Batman's head. Batman answered with a fierce uppercut… and Selina blew him a kiss.

"Big red robot," she said, pointing, just before Red Tornado entered. "Superman," she added swinging her arm to point in the opposite direction just before Superman charged to the spot. "And the tnuc," Selina added, pointing upward just as Zatanna materialized from above.

Selina gave her the finger before strolling through the gaping hole into the clock passage and proceeding down to the cave.

"43 minutes," she announced. "You can set your clock by it. – At least you'll be able to once the clock resets itself for the next show."

Batman didn't turn from his workstation but Jason smiled politely.

"Good morning," he said mildly. "I trust you slept well."

"Yeah, 'Kreee' shaking the plaster off the walls every 43 minutes makes for a wonderfully restful night. Not to mention _who_ is doing the kree-ing and who she has with her. You don't imagine either of us would get a wink of sleep with… with _them_ running amok in this house."

Jason made a sour face; Selina watched the back of Batman's head.

"Have you had coffee?" she called softly.

"No."

"I could make some," she offered, "unless you'd prefer tea?"

There was no response, but Selina was unfazed. She walked up behind his chair and turned it around to face her.

"Hi," she said simply. "I called Alfred, I told to him take another week in Vermont. He wants to know why and I couldn't really figure out how to phrase it, so you're on your own for that one. Number is next to the phone in the kitchen. When you're ready to take a break from all this, go up and give him a call."

Jason was amused to see the intensity of the Batman persona flicker a bit during her speech.

"Anything new upstairs?" he asked.

"It's all new," she said. "Apart from the Justice League Rockettes doing their kickline in the study every 43 minutes, all the rest of it seems like these random one-shots. I saw Dick around age 15 sneak into his room upstairs with a couple _ahem_-magazines I doubt he was allowed to read at that age, and a costume party going on in the Great Hall. You were Henry VIII, which I must say isn't an ideal look for you, but I made a stunning Catherine of Aragon so we'll assume that's why you went along with it. And oh yes, _Ivy_ –I'm not kidding, Queen Chlorophyll herself wearing little more than a leaf and a smile– out on the patio. We will not discuss what she was doing out there, other than to say it's lucky for you that I know that's an alternate universe." She broke into an exaggerated cheery smile. "So what's happening down here?"

"For now the dimensional anomalies seem confined to the house," Batman noted dryly. "Dr. Leiverman is checked in at the Hyatt and the Wayne Foundation has provided him with an office in town, all the computer resources he'll need, and Oracle has established a shielded network so we can send him as much data as… as is prudent. He says he'll be available 24/7 for any kind of consultation until this is over."

"24/7," Selina noted. "He's another one that doesn't eat and sleep, I take it?"

"No scientist would sleep with something like this dangling in front of him," Batman told her. "He knows only a tenth of what's really happening and he had tears in his eyes: culmination of his life's work, etc."

"Okay," Selina said with that distinct 'humor and handle them' expression. "That's Alfred, and Dr. Leiverman. Now how are _you_?"

"I've finally mapped out that scene looping in the study," Batman answered brusquely. "Still a fair amount of conjecture, since we can't hear much of what's being said. And given the speed and violence of the battle playing out, it's not easy to read their lips. But the alien is called Despero; he obviously has mind control abilities and he evidently took control of several leaguers at some point before the… the _anomaly_ that we're seeing begins. He appears to have had Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and "me" to start with, picked up Black Canary and Green Lantern as he went along, leaving Flash, Green Arrow, and Hawkman to fare as best they could – which isn't very well from the looks of it. Superman seems intent on protecting Alfred, who I'm evidently trying to attack… Despero goes after Superman; Red Tornado intervenes. Zatanna appears, freezes Despero, and uses magic to snap everyone out of it."

"Fascinating," Selina said, like she'd rather have heard Joker tell the octopus joke.

"From the body language and the remarks I was able to observe, I suspect this League's history isn't very different from ours," Batman said coldly.

"I see," Selina murmured. Then in an obvious attempt to change the subject, she turned to Jason. "Ettie have any input on this?"

"Etrigan has not spoken since his outburst yesterday when the two of you looked into the water. He's gone quiet before and it's usually bad news, but this feels very different. This is… When an animal is sick or injured, it retreats from the world, an instinct to hide itself lest it appear weak before predators."

"You're saying _Etrigan_ is hiding under the bed like puppy with a warm nose?"

"Not a perfect analogy perhaps," Jason admitted. "All I can say is it doesn't _feel_ like one of his conniving silences. I believe something is… very, very wrong."

Batman touched several controls on the workstation and a large hologram of the manor floorplan appeared in the center of the cave. He took a light pen and marked off the upstairs hallway leading to the bedrooms and the Great Hall. Then he turned to Selina.

"Where did you say Ivy appeared?" he asked casually.

"North corner of the patio," she answered just as calmly. "We're charting the dimension leaks," she told Jason sweetly. "When reality bubbles are popping all around you, you've got to do something to stay grounded, and we're doing this."

"Can we be so sure these are dimensional variations and not temporal ones?" Jason asked, trying to get into the nonchalant spirit of the conversation.

"Yes, we can," Selina said firmly. She turned away, rather less casually, and joined Batman at the hologram. She pointed to a glowing mark on the grid, indicating (Jason surmised) the apparition of a costume party in the Great Hall. She said something softly, and Batman tapped a small palm console with a stylus. A time notation appeared next to the glowing point on the hologram. They repeated this exercise for the patio and the upstairs hallway.

Jason cleared his throat, prepared to try again.

"What I meant was that the first of these 'visions' to manifest was the final confrontation between Azrael and Batman, which really occurred in our reality, didn't it Bruce, in just the way you saw?"

"Jason for pity sake!" Selina exclaimed, wheeling on him like a charging wildcat, "Did you not _see_ that goggled, flat chested insult to all things Catwoman straight out of the pages of the Gotham fucking Post standing in the study every 43 minutes?"

Batman gave the console a final tap and turned silently back to his workstation, absorbing himself in the graphs on the screen. Jason Blood, he reflected, might be an immortal with the experience of a dozen lifetimes under his belt, he might have seen nether realms and possess magical sensitivities that could foresee a man's destiny or penetrate secret identities – but _never_ had the limitations of "special powers" been clearer if, for all those advantages, he didn't know better than to pull that particular cat's tail. 

Neither Bruce nor Batman had mentioned the "goggle-cat" in the Justice League scene since the apparition's first appearance. It had been 'the elephant in the room' all night with Selina, every time Black Canary's _KREE_ signaled the scene was repeating again in the study. Bruce knew better than to introduce any subject that could lead up to it, and his strategist's brain had quickly mapped out all topics that could lead to that unwanted destination. He could guess how the prospect of any Catwoman anywhere resembling, even superficially, the Gotham Post's depiction of her would antagonize Selina to the point of… to the point of… Well, that was the troubling question, wasn't it…

"Jason," Selina was saying testily, "It may, in fact, be a matter of time until Hawkman hits Bruce with a clock, but short hair, zip-up biker chick catsuit and goggles _ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE! _It's not just how they look – although they look _terrible_ (and look at me, Jason, am I going to mess with a look that can rock Batman back on his heels?) – It's what they MEAN! They're that guttertrash East End whore and if you think for one minute that I—"

"I'm going to call Alfred," Batman announced quietly, while Jason slid his hands into his pockets and patiently waited out the storm. Bruce removed his cowl, ran his fingers through his hair, and walked thoughtfully to the kitchen.

…When it was just pixels on a page, nothing more than the blatant lies of a supermarket tabloid, Selina had been moved to overturn her life and interrupt her career as Catwoman in order to stand on a stage and make the truth known. Now it was a life-size 3-dimensional image. —But _not_ flesh and blood, Bruce quickly noted. He was acutely aware that whatever these apparitions _seemed_ to be, whatever he theorized about them as alternate realities, they could be nothing more than illusions created to manipulate them. It could all be nothing more than a shadowplay designed to provoke a response.

The possibilities with respect to Selina were truly… frightening. Ra's said _she_ was the heart of the coming apocalypse. Jason said it. And Etrigan said it. What if…

"Practical," Selina spat, coming up behind him, continuing some dialogue all her own. "Stupidest goddamn thing I ever heard, what does a _man_ with two-tone hair – never wore a catsuit a day in his life – know about practical, hm? You want to talk practical, Handsome, lose the cape! Kittlemeier's been on you about it since he saw that movie."

Bruce watched her affectionately as she stormed around the kitchen pulling tins from the cupboard and slamming a teapot down on the counter, all the while muttering about the "impractical" lengths women go to with mascara, curling irons, and leg wax. Reality was melting all around them, Existence itself threatening to implode, and she was ranting about her costume.

"Maybe you really are the apocalypse," he said quietly.

* * *

∞** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius 3**

It was fifteen years since Thomas Wayne Jr. had wrested control of the Wayne fortune from his father, and twelve since he'd ejected the miserable old coot from the manor. So how in the name of a Manus Masked Owl did Alfred Pennyworth get back inside the house?

Pennyworth. That repulsive sycophant that had to "stay with the senior Mr. Wayne" even when Tommy Jr. offered to triple his salary. Of course he'd only wanted Pennyworth to stay in order to deprive his father of that last retainer.

But Pennyworth wouldn't hear of it. Tommy knew that must mean he had dirt on Wayne Sr. that made employment there more profitable. And Tommy _wanted_ that dirt – but when bribery failed, and a few go-rounds with the business end of a lit cigar on that gnarled liver-spotted hand failed to produce anything useful, Tommy gave the old man a broken wrist to remember him by and sent him on his way.

So how – how was it possible that he'd just seen Alfred fucking Pennyworth walk down the hall and into the kitchen? Since then, there hadn't been any sign of the old snake, but Tommy would find him if he had to tear the house apart piece by piece.

* * *

∞** Wayne Manor, Here and Now**

Bruce sipped his tea and looked suspiciously at Selina.

"How did you make this?" he asked while she loaded the pot, milk, sugar, and Jason's mug onto a tray to bring down to the cave. She smiled secretly, but didn't respond to his question.

"Selina," he repeated, "That's Alfred's tea _exactly_. How did you make this?"

"Hot water and tea, how else," she said, starting for the elevator in Alfred's pantry.

Bruce's determination to learn the answer was evident by the sudden, perceptible density shift – followed by the Bat-voice.

"There are only four tins of tea in this kitchen," he said, following her to the elevator. "I've tried them all, nothing tastes like this. Dick's tried to make it; Barbara's tried. I think once Leslie tried. It never comes out like this. Selina, I'm going to ask you one more time, and you're going to tell me – how did you make this?"

_˜˜Alfred taught her when the girl Stephanie-Spoiler came to my realm.˜˜_

The words sounded in Bruce's mind, an eerie but familiar mind-voice.

"Did you hear that?" Selina asked, growing pale.

_˜˜Leave us, Dark Mortal.˜˜ _

"I know that voice," Selina said, turning towards a clammy patch of cold she felt stirring at her right arm. The cold congealed into a whitish mist; split into two parts, half white and half black; and then solidified further into the body of a woman. Half of her face was lovely, half ugly and misshapen; from her waist up her skin was pink and alive, while her waist down was dead and rotting.

"Hella," Selina greeted the figure with a sickly smile, "Bruce, you remember Hella, goddess of the underworld, daughter of Loki, girlfriend of that big demon-ugly that took over Robinson Park last year, turned everybody into Berserkers and tried to bring on Ragnarok."

_˜˜Janus and I are no longer together, ˜˜ _the mind-voice announced, regal but somewhat defensive. _He has departed the Fifth Circle and elected to go 'on walkabout' in the infinite void. No one misses him. He was a minor god – of doorways, and the mortal cults which worshipped him passed long ago into the ether.˜˜ _

She turned to Bruce sharply.

_˜˜I told thee to leave us, Dark Mortal. And thy opinion of Janus's motive for leaving the Netherworld thou may keepest to thyself. I would speak to the sister in private. If it will induce thee to leave us alone, thou may converse with thy parents, who wait for thee beyond that door.˜˜ _

"I will not leave you alone with her," Bruce growled, stepping between Hella and Selina. "And I will not believe that anything you conjure is my parents. It might look like them, sound like them, but—"

KREEEEEEE

"Oh good, that's just what was needed," Selina muttered.

Hella turned towards the sound of the piercing Canary Cry, and walked, fascinated, towards it. Bruce and Selina looked at each other, then followed. They reached the study just as Zatanna made her entrance and froze the finheaded alien attacking Superman.

"-POTS! Eugael ekaw pu!" she cried.

_˜˜Behold, Sister. Behold, Dark Mortal. Behold the cancer, the Mother of Oblivion, the heir of that which should not be and so will not be. Your fault, Empty One. Your magick. You would not be content with rabbit and dove, you would not be content with illusion, 'The Great' 'The Amazing' 'The Master of Illusion' – You would not be content. You had to know true magick. Edging your way to the center of the invisible labyrinth, was it worth it, Empty One? Talking backwards, you could not go back. Such power without cost – knew you what cancer you brought into being? Knew you what this your true child would bring forth in the hands of your blood child?˜˜ _

A man with white hair suddenly stood beside her, in the white tie and tails of an old-fashioned stage magician. His right hand was stained with blood, his left held a tophat with the bloody carcass of a white rabbit resting inside. Selina shrank back from the image.

"That's the man from the posters in Zatanna's apartment," she whispered to Bruce. "Her father? Zatara?"

Bruce nodded, and Zatara turned to both of them and offered a slight nod that was almost a bow.

"You can see us," Bruce noted. "None of the others have."

"I am not like others," he said. "I am not like any other. I am –I was, like you. I am of your world, and I was born, like you, to live and die a man and hold no sway over the powers of the cosmos. I was an Illusionist, but I wanted, like all who deal in smoke and mirrors, to believe there was something more. I married a woman born of mystics. Her people were all magic-folk, they toiled for their powers, they crafted it over generations, it was – she was – quite… beautiful. And I was seduced.  
"I could not live content in a world where such powers existed when I had none but the cheap trickery of stagecraft. So I found my way to the maze, to the hollow at the center of all. There I found the power I craved. And it was Empty. It was ash in my mouth, talking backwards. But there was no returning, no way back. Talking backwards, walking backwards, there was no way to go back. So I hid in illusion and the cheap trickery of stagecraft once more. Strings and sleight of hand." He turned to Hella before adding "And then death."

"Okay," Selina said calmly. "Couple questions. First – While that was all very poetic, is there a reason none of you people can ever come right out with a nice straightforward explanation? Just up and announce 'They've got priceless cat icons in the vault at Sotheby's, I'm going after them tonight, stop me if you can'?"

Zatara looked at her with a sadly amused smile, then at his daughter who he watched intently as he spoke.

"Can one ever tell a headstrong young woman something she doesn't want to hear?" he said. "I've said as much I dare, Selina Kyle. What I have wrought is my own burden."

"Well that's useful," Selina said acidly. "Hella, your turn. Why me? Why bring this whole magical mess to me, hm? Do I look like Harry Potter to any of you?"

"I came here, Sister, because it is the place to be. I brought the Empty One because he is under geas to speak, that the spark which smolders be put out before it bursts into flame that consumes all. The Music of the Universe will not be silenced."

The room darkened perceptibly, and a spotlight from nowhere fell on Zatara.

"The Fire of the Berliani comes again," he said. "won sdne arataz."

Blackness fell like a tarp over the study, there was a clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, and when normal lighting returned, Bruce and Selina were alone – until an eight-year-old boy that looked very much like Bruce came running through the room with a deerstalker cap and a magnifying glass. "Come Watson," the boy called, "The game's afoot. The Hound of the Baskervilles awaits us!"

He ran out, and again Bruce and Selina were alone.

"Well," she said after a long moment, "If we live through this, Eddie's going to have his work cut out for him. This is going to be hard to top."

* * *

∞** Wayne Manor, Mundus Alius 3 **

Tommy Wayne still hadn't worked out how Alfred Pennyworth got into his house. He still hadn't found where Pennyworth was hiding. But he'd uncovered the first clue as to what the limey scum was up to on his father's behalf…

His father, the sniveling rat-bastard coward. It was Thomas Wayne Sr. who was responsible for Bruce and his mother being killed in that alley. Tommy had a hunch he'd engineered it: give her a fat strand of pearls, lead her right to the gunman and be done with her – maybe score some insurance and move on to fresher meat. And Bruce, his little brother Bruce, must've got in the way. But even if his father hadn't engineered the murders, he never ate a bullet. Tommy knew the only way his father could have survived that encounter was by striking some cowardly bargain with the gunman. He'd vowed to take down that monster, and that vow gave birth to Owlman. As Owlman, he'd come into contact with beings of incredible power – incredible power and no more brains than dirt. Ultraman was easier to maneuver than a trained spaniel; Superwoman could be kept in line with a good fuck every few weeks; Power Ring was just smart enough to see who was really running things and he kissed ass accordingly; and Johnny Quick was helplessly bound to whoever could provide his next fix.

In controlling those four, Owlman controlled the world – which was gratifying, but it had taken time away from his vendetta against his father. He'd let the old bastard live too long, and now look at the result: his flunky Pennyworth roaming free in the house. His flunky Pennyworth freeing Selina.

Tommy had just seen her walking into the morning room just as casually as Pennyworth himself had gone into the kitchen earlier.

_Selina_ – in the _MANOR_ – it was obscene – downright kinky in fact – so kinky Tommy was sorry he hadn't thought of it himself – but not like this. Her place was in the cave, on her leash, with just enough chain to reach the gym to keep herself fit and pretty, to reach the bar to pour his drinks when he returned from patrol, and to reach the niche under his workstation to… _entertain_ him while he logged the night's plunder.

* * *

KREEEEEEE

Jason and Bruce remained impassive as the echo of distant canary cry reached the Batcave. Selina looked hatefully towards the clock passage and made a scratching motion, then returned her attention to the meeting.

"The Berliani," Jason said anxiously. "You're certain he said The Berliani?"

"The Fire of the Berliani comes again," Batman quoted. "That's what Zatara's 'ghost' said right before he incanted himself out of existence. What does it mean?"

"It means our situation is very dire," Jason answered.

"We knew that," Batman said coldly. "Anything more specific?"

"I'm afraid not, not until I can do some research. I recognize the _name_, it's… a very obscure legend among magic-users. I don't recall the details." He closed his eyes with a pained expression. "And I trust it is not Etrigan keeping me from remembering. He is still very quiet. It is most disconcerting."

"I'm more interested in what Hella said," Batman noted brusquely, reopening several screens on the workstation. "She used the same phrases as Selina when you asked what she saw in the water: a spark smoldering that will become a flame – and evidently burn up most, if not all, of existence. And then she said 'the music of the universe won't be silenced.' Remember what Dr. Leiverman said about String Theory, that there was an ancient Hindu sect that believed almost the same things that string theory is based on? The entire universe is sound, vibrating filaments of sound. That's why all the chanting, by the way, to tie into the primal sound of the universe?"

"Y-yes," Jason said uncertainly, as if sensing a trap.

Batman pointed to the largest screen looming over the cave, which displayed a perfect sine wave.

"That's what sound looks like – waves – sound waves. A pure tone is a perfect sine wave." He pressed a button and a low, steady tone played on the right desktop speaker. "This is the same tone 180-degrees out of phase," Batman said, bringing up a second wave displayed immediately beneath it. He pressed a series of buttons and the right speaker turned off, then the same tone emanated from the left speaker. "The tone is the same because it's the same frequency, but this is 180-degrees out of phase." Another series of buttons and both speakers played. The effect was strange, Jason noted, like someone was repeatedly covering and uncovering his ears at opposite intervals and at a high rate of speed. He actually had to grab the back of the chair to steady his balance for a moment as his equilibrium shifted. "Waves are mathematical, zero sum. Add opposites together, they cancel each other out." Batman took a speaker in each hand, brought them close together, sitting them only inches apart on the desk, and turned them to face each other. The sound volume dropped to nothing.

After a moment, Batman pulled the speakers apart again and turned off the tones. "The 'music' of the universe won't be silenced?" he graveled. "If Leiverman is right, if everything that exists, energy and matter, is all vibrating strings – and magic is a way of _changing_ their vibrations – Jason, think about it, alternate dimensions bleeding in all over this house. What if two of them, two magic-users, reached out at exactly the same time in exactly the same way to change a given string's vibration – and that is the result!" He pointed at the main screen as the two waves merged into a single flat line. "There's your spark – they _stopped_ a string from vibrating – to use the Hindu analogy, they silenced the music of existence in one spot, _-spark-_," He snapped his fingers. "And now it's… smoldering, literally smoldering in the fabric of space-time, one stilled String, slowing or stopping others around it. Little patches of instability popping up at random but eventually…"

"An inferno," Jason said grimly. "An inferno of… negation? Silencing the music of being."

Neither man said anything more, and after a few seconds it occurred to Batman that Selina hadn't made any contribution to the conversation. He looked over, and she had performed that maneuver only she could: curling into a feline ball, a seemingly impossible feat in the Batcave chairs, and falling asleep.

He jerked his head sharply to the side, signaling Jason to follow him across the cave.

"Let her be," he said in a hushed whisper. "She hasn't slept in two nights, between the anomalies last night and Joker the night before."

Jason hid his amusement that, of course, Batman knew Selina's secret about not sleeping while he was out battling Joker. Instead he returned to the more pressing issue, matching Batman in the quiet intensity of his whisper.

"Let's say you're correct, two or more magic users trying to 'affect' the same strings at the same moment. Since Wayne Manor seems to be the heart of the cosmic disturbance, can we assume the seeing ritual I began with Selina is one of those 'inciting incidents'?"

"No," Batman said definitely. "You hadn't even started it, Jason."

"Selina was involved, Bruce. And _Selina_ is the heart of this."

"She didn't do anything!" Batman hissed emphatically.

"She hates Zatanna," Jason said simply.

"Jason, between us, if that was enough to start an apocalypse we'd be on cosmic annihilation 17 since January."

Jason looked across the cave to the chair where Selina slept, then turned back to Batman.

"She looked into the water and screamed," he said. "Etrigan looked into the water and screamed and hasn't been heard from since. Bruce… I really think that ceremony is the key."

"IF you're right, then what? If it really is multiple dimensions magically accessing the same strings, then which are they, how do we find them? What did we touch?"

"I don't know. I truly don't know." Again he turned and watched Selina sleep. "But she may."

"Let her have her catnap," Batman instructed.

Rather than press, Jason smiled.

"Bruce, she's not really a cat."

Batman too had turned to watch her sleep, and his lip twitched markedly at this comment.

"Isn't she? Look at that, grabbing 10 minutes wherever she can. Jason, I've known that woman for a very long time and there's more to it than a name to rob jewelry stores by. She is a cat-woman in so many ways, I don't claim to understand it but—Jason?"

Jason Blood's face had gone deathly pale.

"That—" he sputtered, then swallowed. "That possibility had not occurred to me. That— Bruce, no, she's an ordinary woman. She couldn't— If—"

Jason felt his heart pounding in his ears as it hadn't for decades. Selina Kyle _was_ an absolute cocktail of contradictions. Dark circles and such tired eyes that morning, unable to sleep because Batman had been out late battling the Joker. Reference the fact that she began as Batman's enemy, and she wouldn't blush. Not so much as an awkward glance or a discomfited pause would answer you – a naughty grin was the most likely response. Now she was his wife in all but name, but the slightest hint at _that_ obvious reality would bring embarrassed denials, angry hissing, and probably a lifetime exile from the Wayne dinner table and the pleasures of Leg of Lamb a la Pennyworth.

"Spit it out, Jason. What are you trying to say?"

"Cats are unique in the magic world, Bruce. They're the exception to every rule. Their 'essence' is a mystery, and they defy any means of classification necessary to make the magicks run true. Trying to hex one can bring about the most unpredictable reversals. The powers of a black cat potion are the most difficult to call or control… I, I shudder to think what a 'purple cat' might—"

"DON'T say what I think you're about to say, Jason; don't even think it."

"Infinite dimensions, Bruce. Think about it: Zatara was named as the source of a cancer. Zatara's _magic_ living on in Zatanna, who we know has abused her powers in at least one reality. If _any_ Zatanna _any_where in _any_ dimension tried to cast a spell on Selina—"

Batman's fist pulled back in a blinding blur and stopped short within inches of Jason's jaw. Through the eyeslits of the mask, Jason saw the same lifeless, isolated emptiness he'd seen on Bruce as he watched Selina take her seat at the ritual table.

"I see you already have thought about it," Jason said shrewdly.

Batman turned on his heel and left the cave.

* * *

… to be continued…


	4. Here and Now

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 4: Here and Now_

* * *

Jason Blood stood in the Batcave, wondering what had possessed him. They were all standing on the brink of apocalypse. Bruce and Selina were not only his allies in trying to reverse this calamity; they were somehow inextricably connected to it. And he had… _assaulted_ Bruce in the clumsiest, cruelest, most senseless manner possible.

"Nice going," Selina said coldly.

Jason looked at her, ashamed.

"How long have you been awake?" he asked – although the accusation in her eyes made the question something of a formality.

"I heard enough," she said. "He almost hit me like that once. Was a vault. Cat icons. I had made a joke that it wasn't really stealing, it was more like practical socialism. He almost hit me –like he did you just now, and he stopped himself – just like with you. Thing is, Jason, that night was the first time I truly saw the real man under that mask. He can be hurt so easily. For christsake, Jason, you were a knight once; you think all that armor is _decorative_?"

"I apologize," he said sincerely.

Selina took a deep breath, and watched a cluster of bats hanging on a stalactite.

"Jason," she said finally, "when he did hit you that day in the morning room, I've only seen him like that twice before: The first time was hell month when Nightwing was missing, the prospect of losing someone else that he loved to a criminal… and the second time was the mindwipe, the day Superman told us what he knew, the details, about the magic mindwipe."

Jason smiled sadly.

"So that day in the morning room, my bringing _you _as the woman he loves into contact with _magic…_"

"Not your best move," she agreed. Then she paused, seeming to work herself up before continuing. "Jason, maybe it's not me at the heart of all this. Maybe it's _him_. If he thought – what was the phrase you used before – if any Bruce anywhere, in any dimension, thought somebody had used magic on me…"

"Say it, Selina, you know him better than anyone. What then? What might he do?"

"What did he do the last time?" she said dully. "When crime took what he loved, he made war on it like nothing has ever been made war on. His mind and his body, his life and his fortune, all dedicated to wiping out this supremely unacceptable thing. If he thinks… If any Bruce that's anything like ours thought Zatanna used magic against me, then I'd say cosmic force or no, it's going down."

"I notice you're no longer wearing the moonstone," Jason said cautiously. "It is a very beautiful jewel he gave you to wear in its place… Selina, if we're correct – and I freely admit before I say more that I have absolutely no idea how we could 'test this hypothesis,' (to use the terminology of the laboratory that would give Bruce such satisfaction)… But _if we are correct_, then it's going to be up to you to enter these alternate dimensions, find these alternate reality Bruce Waynes, and… somehow… talk them out of this ritual/experiment/what-have-you before it can begin."

"Jason, there are roughly six hundred things wrong with that statement, but the simplest one to mention is that the study upstairs goes KREEE every 43 minutes. It's already happening; whatever those Bruces did, it's done. The spark is smoldering; how can I possibly talk him out of something that's already happened?"

Jason shook his head impatiently.

"You're thinking in terms of linear time: the past occurs before the present which occurs before the future. This is quite different. This is _infinity_ we're dealing with, Selina. And Infinity has _nothing to do with_ _time_. Infinity is that dimension of here and now which thinking in 'time' cuts out. This is _it_, if it doesn't exist in the here and now, it doesn't exist. And the experience of Infinity right here and now is the function of life."

Selina sighed wearily.

"Infinity hm? You know Jason, all I did was kiss a man in a mask."

"That's hardly _all_ you did, Selina. You're the only happiness he's had in his adult life. And he is an extraordinary – and an extraordinarily dangerous – man. There is, perhaps, a more deeply profound responsibility in having made Bruce Wayne happy than there is in summoning the magical forces as Zatanna has done."

A hard, cold look fixed itself on the tip of Jason Blood's nose.

"Jason," Selina said finally – in that charged 'Catwoman' voice she seldom used with him since their earliest meetings. "Before we go any further, I'd like you to go upstairs and wait for me in the kitchen for a while."

* * *

Selina knew what had to be done. The two theories made sense: Identical magic from multiple dimensions touching the same point had stilled the strings, and Bruce himself was the instigator once he got the idea Zatanna had used magic to change her.

It made sense. It fit the facts (if crazy portents and the nightmares of a snarky demonologist could be called facts), and it fit Bruce – dear, wonderful, obsessive, crusading, cat-loving, magic-hating Bruce.

Selina knew what had to be done. She knew in her heart that the theories were right, and that meant Jason was right too. It was up to her to go into those alternate dimensions and fix this. And _that_ meant Bruce had to be told.

That was the "had to be done" that she knew but couldn't quite stomach. She knew it was necessary, but the prospect of dimension hopping into the land of goggle-cats and Poison Ivy lurking on the Wayne Manor patio was a lot easier to face than walking up to Bruce and saying "Look Handsome, about this Zatanna-zoinked-the-kitty idea you're got up your ass…"

But it had to be done. It had to. It had to.

She would just go into the study and say "Bruce, …" …

She would go into the study, and Bruce would be there and she'd say… she'd say…

The study. Portrait of the Waynes above the fireplace, first edition of _Crime and Punishment_ on the wrought iron bookstand on the table, teak and mahogany desk, silver inkwell (Schofield, circa 1790), leather blotterpad, photo of the Waynes in a silver picture frame (Storr, circa 1830), Faberge box, grandfather clock – and Bruce. "Bruce, …"

This was ridiculous. Long before he was Bruce to her, he was Batman. And she had never, NEVER in a thousand rooftops, alleys, or vaults filled with Schofield inkwells and Storr picture frames had to _rehearse_ before talking to Batman. She'd just go marching into that study, open her mouth, and the words would come out. Meow.

She walked in the door. Bruce turned. Their eyes met – Batman's eyes, but the guy inside Batman too, the guy from the vault that night, "I don't look at it as stealing as much as observing practical socialism," a slap she never would have seen coming, a gloved arm materialized at her cheek, and then those eyes… Not Batman. A real person, a man whose wants and needs always came last, a man so used to being in pain he'd forgotten there was any other way to be… "It would seem the 'accept the relationship for what it is' scenario isn't entirely workable." "No," came the whispered reply. Then that kiss…

It had to be done. It had to be said. _Bruce, about this Zatanna-zoinked-the-kitty idea you're got…_

"Ivy on the patio," she blurted, "Remember Poison Ivy on the patio earlier, there's a semi-interesting sequel going on in the dining room. You, with seriously too-short 1940s hair, were most definitely greened and um, it looks like me in an interesting but properly purple and ungoggled outfit – with a tail – kicking her ass."

Bruce grunted.

"I'll note it later," he graveled. "I want to catch this next repetition of the persistent anomaly."

And Selina retreated into herself. Ivy in the dining room, how completely fucking irrelevant. What was wrong with her? _Bruce, we need to talk about Zatanna,_ that's what she was supposed to have said.

So what the hell happened? How could she freeze up like that? It was just Bruce. Cat pins Bruce. Banned from the kitchen because he tried to make a sandwich once and didn't know the lettuce and the lunchmeat had special drawers Bruce. Bruce that watched the tape of Ra's al Ghul on the View no fewer than 63 times, Bruce that wanted her to bring her pet tiger to Bludhaven as a 900 lb bodyguard…

_KREEEEEEE_

…Here we go again, Selina thought. Martian Manhunter – Superman – headlock… of course.

Of course.

If he really was considering the possibility that Zatanna had changed her, then of course Bruce would want to investigate this scene more closely. Almost the full Dr. Light contingent was present… except for Flash who looked like their Flash, Wally, and not the original… and Atom didn't seem to be involved, although you could never be sure with a guy who could shrink down that small.

Pink fin-head alien pulled the wings from Hawkman's back…

_Bruce, we need to talk about Zatanna,_ that's what she needed to say.

"Bruce," Selina began firmly. He turned, and this time Selina carefully avoided his eyes. She took a breath, opened her mouth, and said "… —Didn't Despero's fin used to go the other way?"

Bruce glanced back at the apparition and grunted.

"Yes, used to be front to back when the anomalies began, now it's side to side."

"It's not an improvement," Selina noted.

"No."

"-POTS! Eugael ekaw pu!" Zatanna called, freezing Despero and waking the controlled Leaguers.

Selina raised a contemptuous eyebrow – then her peripheral vision noticed that Bruce wasn't watching Zatanna. His eyes were locked on her. She turned and met his gaze levelly, and he seemed to hesitate before speaking, just as she had done earlier.

"Zatanna hasn't been as audible or as present since that one time when Zatara was here. It must have been the proximity of his magic that pulled her more solidly into this reality."

Selina smiled sadly. She knew that wasn't what he'd wanted to say any more than she wanted to talk about Despero's fin.

"None of them are supposed to be here," Bruce continued, returning his attention to the scene and taking notes on a small handheld device. "I presume that's why their ability to affect this reality is so limited and unstable…"

'The denial twins' Dick once called them. The phrase had never seemed quite so apt.

"…Like Azrael's shuriken in the Turner and Hawkman with the clock, solid one moment and then just like that it's as if it never happened… Canary's cry is audible but not debilitating… The other speech comes and goes…"

"I'm going to have to be the one to fix this," Selina said finally, ignoring the reason why and confident he would do the same.

He froze for a moment, then turned to stare directly at her. A cold silence passed between them for a few agonizing seconds and then he finally spoke.

"No."

Almost immediately, he turned back to the half-visible Leaguers and his notes.

"Absolutely not," he added quietly, almost as if she was gone and he was merely adding a note to his own records.

Selina took a deep breath and tried again.

"I'm going to have to be the one to fix this—" she began as if the first exchange had never occurred.

"No," he repeated.

"—Going into as many dimensions as it takes to find the triggers and stop it," she concluded, ignoring the interruption.

"No. Didn't you hear me, I said no," he repeated, turning toward her again and replacing the handheld device in his belt.

"As a matter of fact I did hear you," she answered sweetly, "and what a novel and unexpected surprise the kneejerk 'no' turned out to be – from you! 'No, grunt, absolutely not.' Who'd have thought it. But I wasn't asking, Bruce, I'm—"

"Asking or not, there is _no way_ I'm going to let you—"

"Let me?" she interrupted. "L_et_?_ Me_? I thought we retired that one with the blue cape, but let's review shall we: You don't 'let' me do anything, Stud. I'm not asking your permission or your blessing, I am _telling _you—"

"Absolutely—."

"—that I'm—"

"—NOT!"

"—GOING!"

At that moment, the image of an alternate reality Alfred entered the scene as he did every 43 minutes, and instinctively Bruce and Selina suspended the argument with his arrival. The silence held for a beat until they each realized what they had done, reacting to a mere chimera from another dimension. It held a beat longer as confusion gave way to embarrassment. After a moment, Selina resumed in calmer tones.

"I _have_ to. If I'm the heart of it—"

"If you're the heart of it," Bruce cut in, calmer but just as insistent as before, "then sending you is like shoving a match into a gas can to see if it's empty. First of all, we don't know that going from one dimension to another is the answer. And secondly, if that is the solution, then I'll be the one to go. I'm more experienced with dimensional travel, I've dealt with things like this before—"

"Bruce. Don't. Just don't, okay? It _has_ to be me, you know that."

He stared.

She stared.

Then, finally…

"I know no such thing," he growled.

"You're supposed to be the rational one," she pointed out with a brave attempt at a naughty grin. "You go all emotional about this and make me be the rational one, _while reality is unraveling to start with_, it's all going to go completely kerfluey and it's all your fault."

The last four words hung in the air as the chimera of an alternate reality Batman called to the chimera of a goggled Catwoman as she turned her back on the Leaguers and left the manor in disgust.

"I have to be the one to go," Selina repeated in the here and now.

"Jason put you up to this, didn't he?" Bruce finally responded.

Selina laughed. Despite the strain of the circumstances, she loved the way his mind worked, and her grin became markedly less naughty and less forced at that quintessential bit of Battitude.

"We're short on time here," she pointed out seriously. "We needed a plan and now we have one… I have to be the one to go."

The alternate reality Hawkman picked his severed wings off the floor and joined the procession of somber Leaguers heading for the door. At the doorway, he stopped as he never had before, and shivered…

_˜˜Soon, He-Valkyrie.˜˜ _the mind-voice whispered. _˜˜Thou will join me soon enough.˜˜_

Then a large yellow shape stepped through Hawkman as if he were nothing more than a projection, and Etrigan stood arm in arm with Hella where the last of the Justice League had been.

**_Custom old and custom wise  
Says days before war are spent 'tween ladies' thighs.  
Tis the way for men and for demons too,  
Uncertainty and strife mean it's time for a screw_**

_˜˜I am beholden to you, Sister.˜˜ _Hella added – the mind voice dreamier and more fulfilled than it sounded previously. ˜˜_It was good of thee to send Etrigan's keeper to me in the kitchen.˜˜ _

Bruce glared at Selina with Batman's rooftop severity.

"You didn't," he graveled.

"Oh don't give me that," she challenged him. "You were ready to punch him out; all I did was ask him to wait in the kitchen."**__**

"You really are the apocalypse," Bruce noted, and Selina stuck out her tongue at him.

"I'm inclined to agree," a polished British voice said dryly.

Everyone turned to see… the impossible: Jason Blood standing in the doorway, glaring hatefully at Etrigan. Etrigan returned the glare with equal hate. And after a tense moment, Whiskers, Nutmeg, and a third cat nobody had ever seen before trotted blithely into the room.

* * *

Selina had followed the new cat into the drawing room, where it settled on a window seat and stared intently at the front lawn.

For as often as she called Bruce a jackass, it had been a very long time since she'd really considered him limited in his thinking. But then it had been quite a long time since she'd been stymied by the obstinate and ridiculous tunnel vision of a crimefighter.

As far as she was concerned, there were quite enough mind-bending hypotheses already on the table to go asking for more: stings vibrating, magic changing the way strings vibrated, alternate dimension magic users going for the same string at the same time, shutting it off, and sparking off a cosmic instability that leaked some kind of alternate reality Poison Ivy into existence to sit at the head of the table in the Wayne Manor dining room with her fucking foliage crawling all over Bruce – An 8 year old Bruce, who was quite simply the cutest miniature person to ever exist, running through the room playing Sherlock Holmes – the Mindwipe Repertory Theatre KREEing into the study every 43 minutes to perform their little rendition of _6 Superheroes in Search of a Conscience_ – And now, Jason Blood and Etrigan were both in the room at the same time.

The last one didn't seem like _that_ a big deal to Selina, not with an AU Green Lantern out on the lawn making an energy platform to transport non-flying AU Justice Leaguers the hell off of Wayne property…

But Bruce wasn't about to proceed with anything until he got an explanation.

So they were at it again, theorizing: Because of the cosmic instability, anything that exists was now at risk of unexisting, including magic. The bond between Jason and Etrigan was woven by Merlin's magic, and something nullified it, perhaps only for a moment, but once the bond was broken… Jason suspected the something was connected to the seeing ritual, for it was just after that when Etrigan went quiet. Bruce said Jason was obsessing on the seeing ritual. Etrigan was speculating _in verse_. Hella was humming to herself _in the mindvoice_. None of the others seemed aware of it, either because the testosterone was running that thick or more likely because Hella only wanted to share her post-coital contentment with "the sister."

It was all too ridiculous as far as Selina was concerned, and she had left them to their speculating and gone off on her own to investigate the mystery cat. It was a beautiful black ASH with stunning yellow eyes. Because it had no solid form, Selina knew she couldn't pick it up to get a better look, so she had to crawl on the floor and contort. She could see it had a collar – blue – and a nametag. TSON was all that was visible, until the cat turned sharply in response to some phantom sound from its own world that Selina could not hear. With the turn the full name became visible, and Selina couldn't control the sudden purr welling in her throat.

Watson.

The cat's name was Watson.

* * *

Bruce Wayne was the only mortal on any plane of existence who would _lecture_ a demon of hell and a goddess of the underworld. But he wanted both Hella and Etrigan to understand –and to verbally confirm that they understood– what using a speakerphone meant: Lionel Leiverman would be able to hear anything said in the room. That meant _he_ could speak, Selina could speak and Jason Blood could speak; and that was it. No rhyming verse from Etrigan, no thees and thous from Hella – and no mind voice either, even though Leiverman probably wouldn't hear it. None of them needed _that_ unnerving distraction on top of everything else.

Jason had retreated to the point in the cave farthest from Etrigan, which happened to be the Trophy Room. There, standing before a display case with a whip of braided purple leather, he sulked.

Catwoman.

He had never realized the depths of Selina's feline nature, the criminal cunning, the talent for mischief, the willful resistance to being told what to do… maybe she really was a cat. He recalled his earlier thought when Bruce put that reality before him: reference the fact that she and Batman began as enemies, fighting each other tooth and nail – or batarang and claw as the case may be, and she wouldn't blush or blink. So much as hint at the nature of their present relationship, she's liable to send you into the kitchen for a hellish tête-à-tête with Etrigan's old girlfriend.

**_Come Jason, self-pity  
Your favorite game  
All ends if the kitty  
Can't unlight the flame.  
Come along then, you're needed  
With bat, cat, and geek.  
A truce is conceded  
Til life ends or next week. _**

"Etrigan, the one bright spot in all this calamity is that I may at last look you in the red beady eye and hear the sound of my own voice telling you to your hideous saddlebag of a face to go fuck yourself."

**_A fine thought so far as the fucking,  
But I've a she-devil ripe for the plucking.  
I don't go it alone; I've a female to bone.  
To you, Jason, I leave the self-tucking._**

Jason smirked.

"Tucking? That's pitiful," he said, turned, and joined Bruce, Selina and Hella in the main cave chamber.

_..:Certainly alternate dimensions exist:.._ Dr. Leiverman squawked over the speakerphone. _ ..:They must. For the strings to move in all the ways they would need to in order to make up all the different things we know exist, they must be able to pass through our three physical dimensions (X Y and Z), a temporal one (T), and at minimum, 11 others. We can't perceive these dimensions because of our point of view – much like, if you were standing across the street looking at a cable strung between two telephone poles, it would look two-dimensional. But if you were much closer, a gnat walking along its surface, then that third dimension which was invisible to you as a human across the street would not only be visible, it would seem impossibly vast. By the same token, if you were just a little larger, an ant perhaps or a spider, you would perceive that that the cable is not a single wire but a cluster of wires, dozens – each with their own length, width, and height – all coiled into it.:.._

"Fascinating, I'm sure, Doctor," Jason drawled. "But it doesn't shed any light on how one could, theoretically, travel into one of these dimensions and return safely to ours."

There was a long pause. Then…

_..:That is Mr. Blood speaking, yes?:.._

"Yes," Jason confirmed. "Forgive me, Doctor; I am an old-fashioned sort. I am not entirely familiar with the conventions of 'conference calls.'"

_..:Oh no, it's not that. I just – Mr. Wayne is still there also, yes?:.._

"Yes," Bruce confirmed.

_..:Well it's just that – what little I saw of you two gentlemen, you're not going to like the answer to that question… We've discussed this a great deal in the think tanks, because transporting a human being into one of those dimensions is the only way we can ever hope to prove the validity of String Theory. We've talked and fought and theorized and wept over the question. The way to do it is a kind of marriage between science and magic.:.. _

"WHAT?" Bruce and Jason asked in unison.

"Good night, sweet prince," Selina said under her breath.

Etrigan slapped his thigh and pointed tauntingly at Jason.

_..:You see, the sub-atomic can cross dimensions very easily. It's possible to entangle two quantum particles so that they are connected regardless of distance. Kind of like twins: if one breaks an arm in Boston and the other feels it in L.A. If you built two walkie-talkies embedded with entangled particles, gave one to that Flash fellow and had him run with it until he approached the speed of light where time dilates, keep going for a while so when he stops, one walkie-talkie is older than the other. It would exist in a different temporal reality. In theory, you could talk on one an hour in the future and hear it on the other in the present.:.._

"Science and magic," Bruce said, as if he hadn't heard a word spoken after that horrifying concept was suggested.

"Magic and science," Jason repeated, just as stupefied.

_..:But science can't build a person out of entangled particles:.._ Dr. Leiverman continued, happily oblivious to the revulsion his words had provoked. _..:These rules, in our reality, apply only to quantum particles. If there were some way that magic could be used to 'change the rulebook,' as it were, to allow for something as large as a human being to 'dimension hop' like a quantum particle.:.._

_˜˜Nothing could be easier,˜˜_ Hella interjected mentally. _ ˜˜With Etrigan and his cage, Iason-the-mortal-who-will-not-die, we are three. With three, the magick this mortal fool thinks is so unattainable is as simple as ρεяαģŏ ΣΨθζ. ˜˜ _

"Doctor, we'll have to call you back," Bruce announced testily. He severed the line with a fierce punch at the keypad and wheeled on Hella. "What did I say about that?" he demanded.

Hella drew herself up regally, glared at him like a goddess, pointed to the floor of the cave, and declared, _"Įŋŧęr mvŋdį, Įŋŧęr vicŧį, abęǿ iųvęŋŧųs. vęŋįǿ mųŋđųs ałįųs. Įŋŧęr mųŋđį ałįį." _

The stone floor puckered at a small point about 4 inches across. The shades of bluish gray, black, and white began to separate. Then the solidity gave way, and what was once rock hard mineral seemed to ooze like thick liquid. The patches of color began to turn like a whirlpool which gradually grew in size until it formed an eddy two feet wide.

Bruce bristled as he stared at the whirlpool in the middle of his floor. Typical magic user, he thought with a grunt. A possibility presents itself and they jump in with both feet. No planning, no preparation, no analysis. No thought to potential repercussions. Not a moment's reflection that with the manor apparently at the center of the cosmic instability, perhaps opening a magic portal _directly underneath it_ wasn't the best course of action. But it was too late to discuss that now, because one of them had taken it upon herself to snap her fingers and start warping reality.

"Etrigan," Hella said simply, ignoring the waves of disapproval coming from Bruce. "Even among demons thou art considered powerful."

Etrigan raised an eyebrow, turned to Bruce, and shrugged. Then he stood over the vortex, hands on his hips like he had no idea what to make of it. He seemed to think a moment, then pronounced:

**_Gone, Gone, the Lady Meow  
To exit thus from Here and Now  
Gone, Gone, from Now and Here  
To rise in quite another sphere. _**

He turned his back on the vortex, offered another feeble shrug, and returned to his seat next to Hella.

Jason looked at Selina.

"Are you sure?" he asked soberly.

"Of course not," she said. "But what choice do we have?"

"Very well," he said quietly. "Then my… 'contribution' to this magical eddy the others created will take the form of an Egyptian prayer from the ancient cult of Bast. _May the goddess stand between you and harm in all the dark places where you must walk_… Bruce, if you set up the Justice League transporter over this vortex, set it to transport not to the Watchtower but back into the cave itself, I believe it will accomplish… what we need it to."

* * *

"You're sure about this?" Batman said while Catwoman pulled her hair through the back of the cat-cowl.

"The answer to that has not changed since the first, second, or third time Jason asked, the time Hella asked me, or the dozen or so times you've asked: No, I'm not sure. Who could be 'sure' about doing something like this? But what choice is there? It's the only idea we've got, and we don't know how much time we have left to waste it hoping we'll think of something better."

"I'm still not convinced that you're the one who should be doing this."

"I know," Selina responded flatly. "But you have to admit that logically it makes the most sense."

He paused, staring directly into her eyes. "I don't like it," he noted.

"Neither do I," she said. "Much as I normally delight in doing things you don't like…"

"Is that lump under your glove the moonstone?" he asked.

"No, it's the sapphire."

Batman grunted.

"Time to go then."

She nodded, stretched up as she had on a hundred rooftops, and kissed him tenderly. Then she stepped quickly into the transporter. As soon as she stepped through the threshold, the air seemed different, the charged tickle of ozone mixed with a woody smoky scent, sweet citrus, and burnt sap.

"What's that smell?" she asked before Batman had time reach the controls.

"Look down," Batman said, his voice thick with disgust. "Jason made another run to his apartment for _those_ while you were getting into costume."

On the floor, Selina saw three small oil-burners, each consisting of three cats supporting a dish of scented oil heating over a burning tea light. One trio of cats was white, one black, and one gold.

"If we make it through this," Catwoman noted in her usual tone of flirtatious amusement, "I'll have to have a looong talk with that man."

Batman's lip twitched.

"We'll make it," he said flatly. "And I'll hold you to that. Those cats are your 'quantum connection' to this dimension. They shouldn't be visible to anyone else in the worlds you cross into, but they'll be visible to you. Step back into the center, and I'll be able to pull you back."

"Okay then," she nodded, and then waited. When nothing happened she said, "No Casablanca shit, okay, just do it."

There was a sudden whoosh and a whirl of lights, intense white, bright pinks and yellows seemed to suck Batman and the cave into its center, then there was just the vortex of colors, yellows gave way to greens and blues and finally purples. Then the eye of the vortex opened and another cave was visible. It expanded quickly outward and in a heartbeat, the last of the colors had dissipated.

"Okay," Catwoman said softly. The first thing she noticed was cavechill – her catsuit was – eek – quite abbreviated. A halter – a very deeply cut halter – and backless. The mask was still in place, the boots still clung above her knee but her clawed gloves were gone. Her stomach lurched as she looked at her hand and saw the sapphire ring was missing as well and – and – instead, on both wrists, she wore these thick, diamond-studded cuffs.

"Nutmeg, I don't think we're in Gotham anymore," she whispered.

_WHOooo_

"Fun. New noise," she noted looking towards the sound – and jumped! In the spot where Bruce's favorite stalactite used to be, a stalagmite rose from the floor. Sitting on top of it was a large, brown, fat, flat-headed, yellow-eyed and not especially friendly-looking owl.

* * *

…to be continued…


	5. Mundus Alius

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 5: Mundus Alius_

* * *

Cats are infinitely adaptable, and Selina accepted quickly enough that she was in an "Owl cave." She didn't like the feathered occupants as much as the bats she knew at home, and she decided they better understand straight off what cats did to birds where she came from. So she walked up to the one perched on the stalagmite and stared unblinking into its hostile yellow eyes. She held this cold stare for some time, and then, very slowly and deliberately, blinked.

The owl squawked in alarm at the warning of a feline predator preparing to pounce. That it was coming from a human woman was immaterial; every instinct told it this was the mannerism of a cat stalking prey. The owl squawked again, flapped its wings in a flurry of agitation, and retreated to a far point in the cave.

Catwoman snarled as she turned her head slowly right and left, a low feral warning to any other feathered pests to stay away, kitty bites.

She then went about investigating this strange new cave. There was only one workstation, and Bruce's password _Thomas – Martha – Justice_ didn't let her in. The drawer behind the keyboard where Bruce kept computer disks held a small round mirror, a thin blade like a miniature batarang, and a delicate silver straw. Selina merely raised an eyebrow and closed the drawer, then she proceeded with her explorations. There was a wetbar where the chem lab would be in the Batcave, a wetbar stocked with conspicuously expensive brands… and right next to the vodka and vermouth sat a little pot of pickled ginger. It was the garnish Selina preferred in her martini, and she'd never once seen anyone use it before she introduced them to the idea. Unconsciously she licked her lips at this subtle, silent hint that, owls or no, her counterpart might have a place in this cave.

The supposition was confirmed almost immediately when a deep, cruel voice graveled "Here kitty, kitty."

Catwoman turned – and tried to freeze her features rather than register surprise. A caped, masked figure was approaching from the Batmobile hangar, but it was no "Batman" surely: The gray feathered cape and the emblems on his chestplate and belt presumably alluded to an owl. The mask was more of a helmet. And the aura of sexy intensity that Batman exuded was replaced by something strangely unappetizing – a feeling Selina couldn't help but associate with the goggles that covered his eyeslits.

"Owlman," she guessed aloud.

"Such _formality_, you conniving alleycat. I guess you heard there was something for you in tonight's plunder. One day I'll find out who your spy is. Gordon? Grayson maybe? Then your only cut of the booty will be cut out of his gizzard."

Selina said nothing but quietly logged the terminology and the general tone – which seemed like Hugo Strange meets Long John Silver.

"Good. Cat's learning to hold her tongue," he said, reaching into the belt and pulling out a perfectly ghastly necklace which looked as if it matched the diamond cuffs she wore. "Tonight's catnip," he said in an oily voice, holding the necklace up by the tip and dangling it in front of her face like a hypnotist's watch. "_If_ you please me. What do you think of it, my prize pussy?"

"It's a dog collar," she noted flatly.

He smiled wide, revealing entirely too many teeth, and Selina fought the rising nausea. Not only was this Owlcreep not Batman, he wasn't even Bruce.

"Woof," he said, turning his back on her and walking towards the workstation. "We'll start with a drink and a foot rub. Then we'll see."

Catwoman raised an eyebrow and considered the possibilities of a cocktail shaker as a blunt instrument.

He sat, and Selina watched in appalled fascination as he took a small packet from his utility belt, took the mirror and miniature blade from the drawer, and (assuming that white powder was the same in this crazy reality as in hers) methodically cut two perfectly parallel lines of cocaine… Selina told herself it was an advantage: an opponent's reflexes blunted by a chemical high, that outweighed the shock to her own system watching Batman –or something very like him- casually snorting coke.

Of course it wasn't _that_ much crazier than his dangling that necklace in front of her saying "We'll start with a foot rub" like she was the owlcave slavegirl. Again she considered the bludgeoning options with a cocktail shaker.

"Take off your helmet," she suggested coolly. "Neck rub instead tonight."

"You'll rub what I tell you, pussycat," he growled, as if he was surprised but excited by something. "Make me that drink, and get your talented whiskers over here. I expect you to be creative tonight. Collar has ten times the diamonds in those bracelets you conned me out of."

Lacking claws, Catwoman picked up the vodka bottle in one hand, the vermouth in the other, and casually smashed them against the side of the bar.

Owlman started at the sound of breaking glass, but sitting as he was at the workstation, he only got as far as swiveling the chair in her direction before Catwoman had lunged at him, holding the one jagged bottle fiercely against his throat and the other between his legs.

"Take off the helmet," she repeated, adding an ironic, "Please."

"Well now," he hissed. "We finally did find a _bad girl_ in there." He made some sort of deep-throated rumble that almost sounded like a purr. Catwoman realized, to her horror, that he was turned on. "So you've given up the feeble tricks with sleeping pills and drugged claws, eh, kitty? You ready to take me on for real?"

A viciously fast – and viciously hard – backhand sent her hurling across the cave. She easily dodged two attempts to kick her while she was down, and managed to topple his balance on the second just long enough to regain her feet.

"Kitty's learned a new trick," he oozed hatefully. "Bout time."

"You talk too much," she answered.

He charged – an angrier and more violent attack than Batman had ever attempted – which made it much easier to counter. A simple aikido lead redirected his momentum and sent him sprawling past her. She stepped back and waited for the next assault. It came – angrier than the first and easier still to deflect. Again she took a step back and waited. Attack and deflect. Attack and deflect. Remaining wholly defensive, she would wait then react for as long as it took. He was obviously much stronger than she – Attack and deflect – and redirecting the force of his attacks, all that strength from all those muscles – Attack and deflect – and no doubt spurred on by the copious amounts of cocaine pumping through his system – Attack and deflect – helped by gravity on occasion – Attack and deflect – Owlman found himself stumbling past her, or onto the floor, time and again.

When she noticed his breathing quickening, she smiled sweetly and meowed, knowing that would enrage him all the more.

"HELLCAT BITCH!" he snarled before the next charge.

"A bitch is a dog," she noted once she'd led him yet again to the floor.

He rolled over onto his back, now breathing very hard.

"A girl normally loves a man who can go all night," she purred, "but this is getting really tiresome." He charged six more times, clearly tiring, until at last when he rolled onto his back he just laid there, panting up at her.

"You won't get the necklace this way, you stupid puss. You'll have to come and get it… from my belt…" He paused and licked his lips. "…with your teeth."

"Tempting, but no," Catwoman hissed. "Take off that mask. I want to know who you are, and I want to know what you did to Bruce Wayne."

Owlman's lip twitched – which was the most horrifying development so far as far as Selina was concerned – but it was an expression of twisted rage, not subdued amusement. Involuntarily she took a step back.

"Where did you hear that name?" Owlman asked, the voice as warped with hatred as AzBat's had been.

"You first," Catwoman challenged him. "The mask – off."

He charged with a wild, furious cry, and Catwoman coolly stepped out of his way, not bothering with a more complicated defense. Instead, having allowed him to remain standing this time, she stepped directly in front of him. He was shorter than Batman, just enough that they stood eye to eye – at least they would have if not for those damnable goggles he wore.

"This is no longer a game, Selina," he said in a deep, deadly voice dripping with menace. "You're here because you please me. Of all the women I've bested, I brought you to this cave to serve me. I let you earn the gems you covet because it amuses me to do so. I've grown accustomed to that…" he looked up and down her body, leering grotesquely, "…luscious body and what you can do with it, and it would truly pain me to never have it again. But if you ever use that talented tongue of yours to speak that name again, I will snap your neck like a toothpick."

Catwoman didn't flinch.

"So you kill too," she noted calmly. "But you're not stupid, that part seems the same. Has it _really_ not occurred to you yet, you repulsive brute, that I am not your Catwoman."

He considered this for a moment. Selina could see the gears turning, just like at home with her own Bruce considering a new idea. But the obvious years of cocaine (and who knows what else) abuse had slowed and dulled the process. As if in reaction to her thoughts, his right nostril flared and twitched a few times until he sniffed harshly. Finally, the leering grin returned.

"That would explain the new edge," he said lustily. "Selina's tame. You're not tamed… yet."

Catwoman smiled agreeably.

"I tell you what, Stud, I won't use the name you don't want to hear, you don't say mine."

He laughed heartily – which was even freakier than the lip-twitch.

"So… _Catwoman_… You've got game, honey. And you're actually… 'bad'? That does suggest some interesting possibilities… What would _you_ do to get a diamond collar, I wonder."

She met his eye squarely. "I'd attach a jammer to the Phoenix relay on Cartier's roof, pop the vent hood over the power conduits, left, down, left, left, down, right and squiggle— drop out in the corridor between the private showroom and the main vault— 0010-048-73— diamond necklace. NOW, will you please, in the name of all things feline and furry, take off that fucking mask."

"Sweet mother, you _swear_ too!" he cheered. "Me-owl, pussycat, we are gonna get on great."

Karma tapped Selina on the shoulder as the memory of a hundred rooftop come-ons flashed through her mind: all Batman wanted was to grunt-get on with the crimefighting, and she teased and tweaked and baited him with her endlessly playful propositions. Sensing that grunt-scowl-"enough" was unlikely to discourage this caped cokehead any more than it would her, Selina decided another approach was called for…

"Could we possibly dispense with the foreplay," she suggested, playing a hunch. "In my world, real men like to skip to the good part."

…It worked. A density-shift occurred. It wasn't like Bruce's transition to Bat-mode; more like a stand-up comic finishing a set and stepping off the stage. He smiled obligingly – again displaying too many teeth – and gamely removed the mask…

Selina gasped. As she suspected, the face before her wasn't Bruce, but it _was_ startlingly familiar. It was the image of Thomas Wayne's portrait over the fireplace in the study.

"Bruce was my brother," he said seriously. "He and my mother were shot in an alley while my father, the coward, did nothing."

Selina took a step back, unable to conceal her shock. "He's dead?" she whispered.

Owlman nodded, a crazy hate coming into his eye.

"Never saw his eleventh birthday," he said bluntly.

Selina blinked away a tear.

"So," he said shrewdly. "You'll mourn for my brother. We have that in common… _Selina_."

"If Bruce is dead, there's nothing for me to do here," she murmured, taking a step away.

"Wait, No!" he growled, grabbing her wrists forcefully just as Bruce had done when he gave her the sapphire. "So in your world it's me that's buried on the hill with her, is it? Did Bruce avenge us? Did he become Owlman? Did he find the gunman? Did he kill our father? Did he? DID HE??"

"If you want answers, let go of my wrists," Catwoman said calmly but firmly.

In a heartbeat the crushing pressure on her wrists eased and a gloved hand materialized at her cheek, just as Batman's once had in a vault long ago.

The moment held, frozen and silent, until that damnable owl returned to its stalagmite with a conspicuously loud flapping.

"It's okay, Thomas," Catwoman said kindly. "He couldn't hit me either."

"Tommy. Nobody calls me Thomas. Ever."

"Tommy then. Goodbye Tommy. There's nothing we can do for each other."

She thrust her knee brutally into his stomach –once, –twice, –three times, then pushed him away and ran towards the main cavern and the oil-burners that represented her link back to reality. Her world, the real world, the real Batcave and the real Bruce – she raced into the circle of cats –

"Comeon-comeon-comeon," she breathed as Owlman cursed and charged after her.

The whirlpool of color appeared again on the far wall of the cave. It looked transparent at first but grew larger and more solid much faster than before, the swirling intensity as it consumed the cave was far more powerful, and Selina felt her equilibrium sucked into it…

It didn't feel like she'd passed out.

There was a momentary swoon only and then,

suddenly,

everything was fine.

She breathed.

…well, maybe not _fine_, she seemed to have a throbbing lump under her mask and as she squinted into the mirror – a mirror which wasn't IN the Batcave that she knew – she saw that it was the old mask from her old skirted costume and – yep, she was wearing the old costume she'd only tried that one summer – and it had a _cape_?? And the bump on her head really hurt. There was a calendar on the table and, and…

Okay her head hurt but, as far as she could tell, her _eyes_ were working fine and the calendar on the table said in was October 1950…

Yikes.

And her head hurt, boy did her head hurt… She thought she heard Batman's voice saying something about **_amnesia_** – which was certainly a dumb enough cliché for it to be 1950 but that thought – along with that of turning towards the Batman voice and seeing if he had an owl helmet and a coke habit – got lost in another bright swirl of light…

Okay that time she did pass out. That definitely felt like passing out. That wasn't a dimension-hopping vortex light; that was losing-consciousness light.

She breathed again.

She was lying down.

She was still in the cave. The air smelled like cavern and she felt cavechill, definitely… She was laying down and… cavechill on her skin and—

"Oh my god I'm naked," she blurted, her eyes popping open in realization.

She peeked under the sheet that covered her. This was worse than the owlcave slavegirl getup! This was – this was – no mask, no costume, skirted caped or otherwise, this was _flat out NUDE! _

Selina gathered the sheet around her and looked up – at a giant penny and a Joker playing card.

"Trophy room," she murmured unbelievingly. "I'm naked in the trophy room." She looked around again. The cave was a bit smaller than the one she knew, and she realized with a start it was the satellite cave under the Wayne tower – but it was a Batcave and that was his monster penny and his gigantic playing card and – yep, right over there was the dinosaur. "He brought me to the Batcave and has me naked in the trophy room," she murmured. "Cosmic spark doesn't get you in this universe, Jackass, I will."

"I was beginning to think you intended to sleep forever," she heard in a familiar bat-gravel.

But before she could look or respond, another sudden whirlwind of color opened underneath her and began sucking her into its depths…

"Here, you'd better put this on," she heard as a wad of purple landed on her legs. "You're lucky I kept one of your old costumes in my trophy room."

Then the whirling sensation intensified and—

This time, again, it didn't feel like she'd passed out.

Just that momentary swoon and then,

suddenly,

everything was fine.

She breathed.

She breathed.

She breathed.

She was wearing the pink sapphire again

– and Bruce's sweater over her favorite long-sleeve t-shirt.

Home.

Whew.

She breathed again. She was home.

Meow.

She checked the stalactite. Bats clung to it. And she smiled at them. Meow.

"Remember boys, you're nothing but flying mice," she told them with a contented purr, "but you're better than birds. Meow."

Meow.

Home. Meow.

She found Bruce in the library, alive and well and poring over what looked like a reference book of runes and a thick binder labeled Wayne Foundation #81542: GENEVA PROJECT; STRING THEORY.

"Honey, I'm home," she murmured lightly.

He looked up, and Selina saw that same estranged look from the study before she'd left. Hell. In her euphoria to be away from the Owlcreep, she'd almost forgotten that unspeakable barrier that still hung between them. _Bruce, we need to talk about Zatanna… _Hell.

"Doing some light reading?" she quipped, taking refuge in the rooftop playfulness she'd always thrown at his ponderous stonewalling.

"Yes," he noted, all distant bat. "I wanted to brush up before Dr. Luthor arrives. He really is an astonishingly gifted theorist—"

"Who?" Selina asked, unconsciously taking a half-step back.

"Luthor. If it weren't for his willingness to pursue the magic angle, I don't see that we'd ever be able to—"

"LUTHOR?!"

Bruce's eyeballs only flickered upward while he remained poised over the book.

"You know him?"

"_LEX_ Luthor?"

"Lewis. Selina what's gotten into you?"

"shit," she muttered, looking down at the sapphire on her finger… and noting for the first time there was only a single baguette on each side instead of three… This wasn't home. This wasn't her sapphire. This wasn't her Bruce. She took the folder from his desk and leafed through it, her mind racing. A few pages in she came to a _curriculum vitae _for Lewis Luthor… Princeton, University of Metropolis, Cornell, Fullbright Scholar, Fermi Prize, DESY, CERN… Underneath there was a photograph. Her feeble joke from that early morning physics lecture echoed in her mind.

_So no separate universe where Lex Luthor has hair? _

But there it was: the spitting image of Lex Luthor with a receding but respectable mop of curly red hair.

She set the folder back on the desk and returned her attention to Bruce.

"When you gave me this ring," she said cautiously, touching the sapphire like an alarm panel she was only half-sure was deactivated. She looked up quizzically, but he was just waiting for her to go on. "…You grabbed me. You were holding on pretty tight." This _wasn't_ her Bruce. Maybe here she could say it to him. "Like you used to." It wasn't her Bruce. It wasn't her Batman. She could say it here. She had to say it. "Like you were afraid I'd slip away."

"What're you getting at?" he graveled.

Batvoice. This was no grinning Call-me-Tommy Owlman. This _was_ Bruce Wayne. This was _Batman_. And she had to say it to him.

"You think Zatanna did something to change me."

He froze for a moment, staring directly at her. A cold silence passed between them for a few agonizing seconds and then he finally spoke.

"No."

"What she tried with Dr. Light," Selina said calmly.

"No."

"What she did to that Flash villain in Keystone."

"I said no."

"Doesn't matter what you say, Bruce. You think that's what happened. You think everything that's happened with us is based on a lie?"

It was agonizing, those naked searching eyes in the silence, the real human being from the vault, then the cold steel of Psychobat slamming down in front of them, then in a blink the steel dissolved and that haunted vulnerability was back. Selina felt like she was driving a spike into everything she'd ever loved. But what choice was there? The words were spoken, there was no going back, she could only continue forward.

"The worst kind of lie too," she said crisply. "A magic lie."

"If it's true," Bruce said, his voice barely breaking a whisper on the words, then building in Bat-determination, "if it's not your choice to be with me, then I'd no right to touch you."

She shook her head and emitted a not-amused chuckle.

"You really are a jackass," she breathed affectionately. "Let me ask you something," she asked gently. "When did it start with us, the _very first spark_ that was…" she stopped and searched for a way to phrase it "…that was 'man and woman' not 'criminal and crimefighter'? In your mind, when was it?"

He looked away and didn't answer.

"Top of the train station, first night?" she prompted.

"The easy way or the hard way," he said ironically, half-expecting her to repeat her retort: _Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get? _Instead she responded:

"Nope. Even before that for me. First glimpse of that big patch of dark, darker than all the regular night around it… six foot two, two hundred pounds, aura of penetrating intensity… body like mortal sin."

"That's just attraction," Bruce said mildly.

"I would have said _lust_," she purred quickly, naughty grin in place.

"Of course you would," he noted. "But animal attraction doesn't mean anything."

"Maybe not on its own, but it's a start. Bruce, we were never… what logic says we should have been. Not from that first moment. So, next question, when did it go beyond 'attraction' – when did it start becoming personal?"

He turned back, eyes meeting hers, the Bat-intensity returned.

"Cartier," he graveled.

"Cartier," she confirmed. "You brought something out in me that went beyond being Catwoman. 'Being Catwoman' _with you _opened up this whole part of me that I didn't even know was there. And the kiss, well, that intensified it in ways I can't even… even now I can't…" She threw up her hands. "There just aren't words for what you do to me. And I wasn't about to wait around for you to make a gift of it, either. I don't do that. I _take_…" She walked up to where he stood and caressed his cheek. "…I _took_… But I didn't want it to be this greedy, one-sided grasping. What I got from you… I wanted to give you something back." She stretched up, her lips dangerously close to his. "Just this once," she whispered.

"Don't," he winced as if in pain.

"It's always been there, Bruce. Long before Zatanna came along."

Rather than return the kiss she was begging for, he touched her lips with his fingertip.

"You didn't stop stealing that night," he said coldly.

"That's what you're planning with Dr. Lei… with Dr. Luthor, isn't it? You want to see the moment when I stopped stealing. You want to conduct a seeing ritual with Dr. Luthor to touch that moment and see if Zatanna's magic was involved."

* * *

The whirlpool of color slowed and faded as the cave solidified, and Selina reached out to steady herself on the wall of the transporter tube. Instead her hand touched the bat insignia.

"Take it easy, Kitten," Batman's voice graveled. "You're home. Give your body time to recover from the transport."

She looked at him, searched his yes, checked her ring finger in a panic, – pink sapphire – she scrutinized it with a jewel thief's expert eye: 4 carat, radiant cut center stone, classic Cartier setting: four prongs, small round diamond about ¾ carat on each side followed by three short baguettes – so far so good.

"Get Dr. whatshisname on the phone," she said urgently.

"Dr. Leiverman?"

Muscles relaxed and uncoiled from her neck down through her shoulders.

"Yes, Dr. Leiverman," she sighed in relief. "But never mind, it's not as urgent as I thought. Is Jason around?"

"Jason's gone to complete some research. Etrigan and Hella are somewhere in the house, upstairs most likely, carrying on like those couples who sneak into the guestrooms during Foundation fundraisers."

"On our own for the moment then?" Catwoman murmured. "Just as well… We are so screwed."

"We knew that," Batman noted.

"We didn't know 'Luthor screwed'," she said seriously. "I just got back from one of the problem worlds. Was identical to this in almost every way. Except Dr. _Leiverman_ was a Luthor."

* * *

"As in Lex Luthor?" Dr. Leiverman asked, astonished, over the speakerphone. "President Lex Luthor?"

"No, his name was Lewis," Selina answered flatly. "But I saw a picture, and it was Lex Luthor." Her eyes flashed up at Batman's before adding, "with hair."

"How… wonderfully bizarre," Dr. Leiverman remarked.

"Dr. Leiverman," Batman cut in, in the businessman-Bruce voice, "I must stress that your politics are of no concern to me. Nothing said here can affect your continued employment with the Wayne Foundation. I must ask you, as a scientist and for the sake of the hypothetical… well, there are many people here who consider Lex Luthor to be… um, well, _evil_. If he is involved, as you are involved, in some alternate dimension's version of the ritual we began with Jason Blood—"

"Seeing as the anomalies in your house began with that ritual, that they seem to be centered on the house, yes, I would say that ritual is the key and the involvement of a Luthor counterpart to myself is… troubling."

"Dr. Leiverman," Selina put in, "The alternate Bruce Wayne indicated that you, your counterpart that is, _Dr. Luthor _was to conduct the ritual with him, not Jason Blood."

Batman hit the mute button sharply. "You didn't mention this before," he hissed.

"Well I've mentioned it now. There was no Jason involved. No dire warnings or moonstones or witch orbs. You had invited Luthor to the house on your own, not in response to Jason, and I wasn't to be involved. You wanted me to go shopping. Bruce, it was _you and Luthor alone_ that were going to perform the ritual in that world."

He stared into the distance, and then very softly, grunted.

"Maybe that's why Jason could sense it," he mused finally. "Multiple Bruce/Luthors in multiple dimensions, acting at the same moment. But this world is different. Here it was you and Jason – and Etrigan. You saw 'it' in the water, Etrigan sensed something, Jason had those premonitions… We can see it because we're—" He stopped and took a sharp breath that would have sounded like a laugh in another man. Then he continued excitedly. "What Dr. Leiverman said about the other dimensions not being perceptible to us, it's all _point of view_. We were different, just by a few degrees maybe, but enough that we could see, or sense, that the crisis is occurring."

_KREEEEEEE _

"I have to go back," Selina said looking towards the clock passageway that echoed again with Canary Cry. "One problem world down, but who knows how many still to go."

"Not yet," Batman declared. "We rushed into this dimension-hopping. Selina, that's why I brought you back. It's all too random, leaving it up to the magic forces to whisk you into whatever reality it wants. It's foolish and dangerous, and we're not doing it again. Jason is looking for a way to tether you to the spark so you'll only jump into worlds that are… pertinent."

"You _brought_ me back?" Selina asked suspiciously.

He nodded.

"Once I got the tether idea, I had Jason modify the portal so it would bring you back on your next jump. He wasn't sure it worked, but it obviously did."

Their eyes met, and Selina remembered his comment that he'd experienced dimensional travel. He had some inkling, perhaps, of the crazy worlds she was seeing.

"You going to get all cocky and arrogant if I admit that I like this idea, that I'm all in favor of the minimize-the-random plan?" she asked quietly.

His lip twitched and it seemed like he wanted to say something, but relapsed into a stoic bat-brood. Then he grunted, and Selina smiled.

"I have to call Clark," he graveled suddenly. "If Luthor was involved in other worlds, we should find out what he's been doing in this one."

* * *

…to be continued…


	6. Mundi Nobilissimi

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 6: Mundi Nobilissimi _

* * *

Superman flew anxiously towards Gotham, the focus of his apprehension shifting between the mission and _Bruce_. There had been a catch in his voice that Clark never heard before, not in a hundred team-ups, in a dozen arguments, in a thousand conversations or in three flat out fights.

There was a situation, he said, grave (as if Bruce would call in help for anything _less_ than a 15 on a scale of 10). But throughout that brief conversation, Bruce's tone had been much what it always was in a crisis situation – serious, authoritative, informed and controlled.

They had to meet, he said. Clark suggested the Watchtower but Bruce said no, the transporter wasn't an option at the moment. Gotham then? Fine. Wayne Tower, 14 minutes. Recognizing the travel time (the Batmobile's average cave-to-Gotham time was 14 minutes) and considering the evident urgency of the situation, Clark said he could come straight to the cave. Then, through the communicator, his super-hearing picked up the rushing surge of human blood pressure, and after the tensest second of Bat-silence ever experienced outside of Hell Month…

"No. Not the house."

Clark had never heard anything like it.

"No. Not the house."

He slowed to a hover as he approached the edge of the Wayne property. He knew Bruce had sensors in place to "detect Kryptonian entry into Wayne Manor's airspace," although he had yet to figure out exactly where the detection net began. And since he had come to the manor against instructions, he wanted to minimize the reaction time once he'd set off the sensors. At his top speed, those inside the house would have only nanoseconds to respond before he…

Well that was something of a problem wasn't it. What exactly was he planning to do bursting into his friend's house? Crash through a wall, through the floor, and into the cave? And to what purpose?

"No. Not the house."

For years Lois told him he was crazy. She asked how someone with the strength and power to pull the moon out of orbit could be scared of someone like Bruce Wayne, normal human being. Clark always replied that he wasn't _scared_ of Bruce, it's just that sometimes it was better to give him what he wanted so he'd stop making your life miserable…

"No. Not the house."

He said _specifically_ not to come to the house. He said it as Batman, he said it right after referencing a "situation" of crisis proportions, and he said it with a catch in his voice like nothing Clark had ever heard before. So what was he supposed to do? Of course he had to go in. Anything could be happening in there. Anything could have a hold on them in there. Anything could… could… he couldn't even _imagine_ what the scenario might be. There was nothing for it but to charge ahead. He made a wide arc out to Bludhaven to pick up speed, then made a flying sprint straight to the front door, knocking (he hoped) at the same second those detectors announced his presence.

Through the thick manor walls and thicker Batcave floor he heard the murmur of voices: a low male grumble, irate, then a higher female reply, aggrieved. Then another grumble and another reply, silence… and finally a sigh. Clark recognized that distinctly; it was Lois's sigh. It was Lois's "I will humor you this time but only because you're sheltering me from a five kiloton explosion. We'll talk about it later once you've put Argentina back where it used to be before Mxyzptlyk turned it into a space station."

The door swung open… and Superman stared. Catwoman (or technically Selina, in costume but unmasked) stood in the doorway, whip in one hand, a stopwatch in the other – and an expression of annoyed pique with which criminals often greeted the arriving hero when his entrance came sooner than expected, frustrating their dastardly plan.

"What part of 'not the house' did you not understand?" she asked testily – which shattered the '_Curse you Superman' _villain-accosting-the-crimefighter image, but evoked Lois instead: Lois standing in the bathroom of the Los Angeles Hilton holding up a tan sandal that was _not_ the brown open-toed pump he'd been sent back to Metropolis to find.

Superman ignored the question itself and focused on the unspoken indicators – Selina Kyle's heartbeat, pulse, and blood pressure were all elevated and climbing. This in a woman he'd never seen rattled, even when he and Batman surprised her breaking into LexCorp that time.

"Selina, are you okay?" he asked with quiet urgency, shifting his eyes to signal that if hostile forces were lurking, she need only give some silent hint.

"I'm sorry," she said wearily, "I don't have that information right now, but if you'd like to check back next week, we'll get back to you."

Undeterred, he looked through her body and past it through the walls, scanning as much of the house as quickly as he could to get some hint what might be happening.

"Is it Bruce?" he asked through his teeth, taking pains not to move his lips in case they were being watched. "Has anything… anyone… taken control of—"

She chortled at him and checked the watch.

"Not for another 12 minutes yet," she said gamely. "Look, you really don't want a part of this. Just meet him in town like he asked, okay?"

But Superman brushed past her, mesmerized by a sight he'd glimpsed through the wall, and he walked with fascinated astonishment into the Great Hall. There he saw Bruce walking down the stairs —in a suit? —Holding a baby?! And Selina – SELINA? He turned back, but the woman he just talked to was still behind him in the catsuit – but the… the same woman was on the stairs behind Bruce, and she wore a chicly tailored dress, white gloves and a fashionable hat. He himself – he blinked – he _himself_ as _Clark Kent _but with a touch of gray beginning at his temples – was suddenly standing at the foot of the stairs, Lois beside him in an even chicer skirted suit. Their mouths were moving, but as hard as he tried to listen he couldn't make out words. He could just convince himself he heard "christening" and "godfather," but that much was suggested by the scene. He couldn't really say he _heard_ any true sound on any spectrum until Selina – the real one, the one following him in from the foyer – spoke.

"Oh, you two are back," she said casually to the apparitions. "Hey Spitcurl, with that sight of yours can you make out any detail on the little rugrat that would say if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Wheh?" Superman breathed, realizing too late that she was talking to him again. He swallowed then looked back at the stairs – the empty stairs – where the phantoms had been standing only a second before but were now vanished.

"Gotta be faster than that," Selina said lightly. "And welcome to the Twilight Zone, by the way. C'mon, let's get you down to the cave before the real antics begin. Bruce will explain – well, not 'explain' but – oh you'll see."

"Selina," he managed finally.

"Nope, no time for chitchat," she said, walking briskly towards the study. "Maybe next time someone tells you stay away from the house you'll take him at his word."

"Selina," he repeated, burying his astonishment in the forceful assertion of a crimefighter who won't be put off. "Did you see that? Back on the stairs, that- that-"

"Sure," she nodded. "And if you mention the details of that particular image to _him_, then Superman or not, I _will_ find _some way_ to set you on fire."

* * *

In the cave, Batman got 4/5 of the way through briefing Superman when the KREEE of Canary Cry signaled the persistent anomaly beginning in the study.

Despite Batman's forewarning, despite his meticulous explanation of all that would happen, despite his urging his friend to simply ignore the sound when it occurred and dismiss the whole dimension leak as the formless shadow it was, Superman raced to the summons of a colleague in trouble.

Batman looked at Catwoman, who looked right back.

"No one can say you guys aren't predictable," she noted.

He grunted.

"That'll be six minutes in the study," she went on, "and another ten if he follows them out to the lawn and watches them leave."

"He will."

Selina looked uneasily towards the transporter.

"That gives us time to send me back to Oz," she breathed.

"I still don't like it," he graveled. "Even with Jason's 'tether' in place to keep you from bouncing around at random, it hasn't been tested in any way. And now with this Luthor angle, we may find a surer way to lock you into this timeline– or if Clark and I are successful today, it may not be necessary for you to jump again at all."

"Bruce… Reality check: the anomalies in the house are coming closer and closer together. If I've noticed it, I'm sure you've observed, quantified, annotated and cross-referenced it by now. Things are getting worse, not better. The sooner I go, the sooner we can end this."

He glared but said nothing.

"The sooner we get our lives back," she offered gamely. "Besides, you'll be off with Spitcurl this time, you won't even miss me."

"I'll—," he began, and then stopped as that dead, distant look returned to his eyes. "I'll get the transporter warmed up," he said finally. "You light those stupid little candles."

* * *

The vortex of color sucked the cave into its depth just as it had before, and then sucked itself into its own center, leaving – to all appearances – the Batcave just as it had been. There was no owl this time, no stalagmite, and no wetbar.

Selina checked her attire hurriedly.

She was in street clothes. A snug, wine-colored top, vaguely suggestive of the catsuit, so far so good… riding pants tucked into over-the-knee boots, very suitable…

And no sapphire.

She told herself it was irrational to be disappointed by that. This wasn't alternate reality sightseeing, after all. She had a job to do, then she could get back to her own world and her own Bruce, who'd given her her own sapphire. She took a cautious step forward and peered into the main chamber of the cave… Batman sat alone at the workstation huddled in what, even at this distance, looked to be the gloomiest bat-funk on record.

Her heart broke as she watched it: sitting alone in the dark stillness of the cave, waves of that hell month aura streaming from him. He wasn't _doing_ anything at the workstation; the monitor wasn't even on. He just sat there… emitting that palpable sense of raw pain churning inside. She took another slow step, then another and another without realizing it, until her heel make a _chik_ on the stone floor and he turned sharply.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded fiercely. "Selina, what?! Did Alfred let you down here?"

"Y-yes," she said cautiously. "Alfred. Let me… down here."

"You're not needed. Go," he ordered.

She took a deep breath. This was going to be a lot trickier than "we'll start with a foot rub."

"Why would Alfred have called me if I wasn't needed?" she asked delicately.

He stared at her blankly for a second, his Kevlar gloves creaking softly as he clenched his fists.

"He _has_ to meddle," Batman exploded. "I told him to let it be, I told him I— Look, just go, okay. I will handle this in my own way."

"Handle what?"

He glared, more waves of that tense coiled hurt streaming off him, but Selina continued undeterred.

"Humor me, okay, I'm here now, so… What can it hurt to talk to me? What happened? What is it you're dealing with?"

"You wouldn't understand," he murmured.

"What with my being dumb as a post and all?" she quipped lightly.

He met her eyes and they stared in tense silence for what seemed like years. She'd seen those gears churning a hundred times before but there was a new intensity this time; a strange sense of urgency behind those eyes. Then, just for a moment, the gloomy intensity lifted. Noting this, Selina zeroed in on the side of his lip, focusing all her will on that one spot, and broke into a naughty grin.

…twitch…

It worked! Even this morass of bat-gloom could be moved to a lip-twitch by the right application of persistence and felinity. The thought morphed her naughty smile into a contented one.

"Try me," she said. "Cats are amazingly adaptable. Whatever subject you want to throw at us, long as you keep stroking the fur in the right place, it's fine. Cats are also amazingly stubborn," she added, "so unless you want me installing myself down here contaminating your cold sterile cave with lots of purple, fun and cat hair, you'd better start talkin'."

Again the aura of ponderous gloom flickered, just for a moment. Then it returned, darker and heavier than before.

"Are you familiar with the theories about time travel and alternate realities arising from changes to a timeline?" Batman asked gruffly.

She froze as an icy foreboding crept up her back.

"A little," she answered dryly.

"Well it's not 'theory' anymore. It's a very definite reality. I've experienced several alternate 'world spheres' in the past few days. I lived a full lifetime in two of them. Superman and I were both… sucked into… trapped in… I don't want to talk about this."

"Okay," Selina said gently, "Up until now I was being nice. I offered to listen because you're obviously hurting and if you thought that Alfred thought I could help… But this just got a lot more serious than that. This could be incredibly important, more important than you can imagine. I need you to tell me everything about those AUs."

He stared at her strangely, then slowly rose from his chair. She noticed that his hand had slipped under his cape, no doubt reaching for something in his belt.

"Who are you?" he graveled menacingly. "You're not Selina. Selina Kyle doesn't get involved with things like this and Selina Kyle certainly doesn't talk to me in this manner. So whoever you are, state your business or get the hell out."

She smiled in spite of herself.

"World's Greatest Detective. It's going to be nice dealing with you."

He glared but not with hateful rage as Owlman had done. He appeared to be waiting for something, like for her to pull off a facemask or shapeshift into another person. When nothing of the sort happened, his hand emerged from under the cape, a batarang gripped tightly in his fist.

"What do you want?"

"I would think that after all these years that would be painfully obvious," she teased. "But what I want isn't important at the moment. We need to talk about what happened to you with these alternate realities."

"I don't talk to _Catwoman_ about such things," he replied tersely.

"Maybe you should," she noted. "Cause the vortex of despair thing you were doing when I came in, that didn't look at all healthy. And if your cat—"

He bristled visibly and immediately Selina regretted her choice of words. He hadn't moved a muscle, but the tension spiked as if she'd confirmed his greatest fear. But she figured at this point, her only option was to plow ahead.

"—if your cat is anything like me, she could probably help you with that. But you're right, I'm not your Selina." She gave a playfully helpless shrug. "And you're not quite done with the alternate realities yet. I'm from one; I'm from one that's – screwed."

His whole body seemed to tense again, and Selina began mentally recalling ways to defend against a batarang without benefit of whip or claws. Then, the strangest thing happened: the confrontational intensity that had been pouring off of him since she'd arrived dissipated, and for a fleeting moment an odd look crossed his face. It was something she rarely saw in Bruce and never when he was in costume. He looked tired. Weary. Not in any way _defeated_, but exhausted. Almost as suddenly, the look vanished and a new intensity took over - one that she was much more familiar with. His logical mind had locked in and he was sifting through possibilities. He was in Detective Mode. He returned the batarang to his belt and addressed her in a strangely direct tone.

"So why are you here?"

"Not really sure. But my hunch? I'm here to find out about you, to hear what you saw in those alternate worlds."

"And why is it _you_ doing the dimension hopping from this world sphere that's 'screwed'? Why wouldn't I have—"

Selina burst out laughing – which brought the darkest scowl yet.

"I'm sorry," she sputtered, trying to get control of her mirth. "It's just too funny. Even here, you're obsessing on that. Control freak jackass." She chuckled a moment more, then finally cleared her throat. "Okay, enough Joker impressions. Do I get to start asking the questions soon, Stud?"

"You can't expect me to take this on faith, Catwoman. You show up here after all that I've- after-" He hesitated for a moment, his frustration mounting. "How do I know this isn't another- With everything else that's happened…" He finally stopped, his jaw setting firm. "When you've answered all of _my_ questions _to my satisfaction_, then and _only_ then will I consider- damnit," he turned away.

"Bruce," she whispered, "What did they do to you?"

She walked around to face him, but he said nothing. She noticed that weariness again, but only in his eyes. The rest of him seemed to be fighting against it with everything he had. She reached up and touched the side of the cowl. After a tense moment, he removed it.

"Better," she noted. "Now tell me what happened."

"A trio of villains from the distant future, the 31st century, traveled into the past, my past, and Superman's. And they intervened at the critical points where… they removed us from the timeline, they… They killed Superman's human family the moment he arrived on Earth, so instead of—"

"The Kents," Selina interrupted to show he could speak freely.

"You know about _that_?" he murmured, astonished.

She nodded.

"My world, Bruce and I don't have any more secrets," she said simply.

He paused, the glower deepening into a sour expression as he processed this new information, then he nodded.

"Instead of being raised by the Kents, Clark was, we both were… They took me right after my parents were gunned down. They raised us as brothers, as if we were their children, and… and they groomed us to, to conquer, to rule for them. It was… it was ugly. It was the vilest, ugliest world… You can't imagine—"

"You'd be amazed what I can imagine, Bruce. Believe me, what you're describing is nowhere near the worst case scenario."

"We _killed_ the heroes that should have become the Justice League," he retorted forcefully. He took a short breath and resumed, a strange detachment in his voice. "Me and Superman, killers. Clark fried Green Arrow where he stood, 'Obey or die,' split second, didn't give it a moment's pause. We _tortured_ Zatanna before we killed her, tortured her magic right out of her. _I_ wound up using it a couple times, how's that for irony."

"Ah," Selina said quietly. "I take it events here aren't very different from my world as far as… relations between you and Zatanna and the League then."

The cold steel of PsychoBat clamped down suddenly, and Selina realized she'd probably overstepped, alluding to the mindwipe with a Batman she didn't really know and whose relationship with his Catwoman seemed… puzzlingly vague.

"You were there," he mentioned, clearly changing the subject. "Both alternate timelines. In the first, our 'parents' arranged women for us. They gave Lois Lane to Clark and… well there was a string of women they set me up with. It never worked out. But you were the last; you were the one that stuck… I was going to keep you. You made me happy – what passed for happy in that world, anyway."

Selina said nothing at first, but mentally ran through the dimensional leaks throughout the manor in which she had appeared.

"That seems to be a recurring theme in my travels," she murmured quietly. "So um, you beat Zatanna's magic out of her, and still we wound up together?"

"I don't think there's a cause and effect," Batman said bluntly.

"Neither do I. Tell me about the second timeline."

He froze for a moment, staring directly into her eyes. A cold silence passed between them for a few agonizing seconds and then he finally spoke.

"No," he declared with Bat-finality.

"Look," she said patiently. "You don't know me, I realize that. But reality is unraveling, and not just the one I come from. I didn't pick this world to come to; I was brought here. And I've got to think there's a reason for that. I don't want to poke into your personal thing – although frankly from what I've seen of you, you could do with a little kitty-poking." She paused and then sighed. "And you're so far gone you're not even going to get the joke there until a half hour after I've left. – Doesn't matter – but you really should go find your cat and let her lighten you up a little. You really should. You should, Bruce. This isn't you. Alone down here, poisoning yourself with the mission 24-7-365, this isn't what your life is supposed to be."

"Do you have a point?" he growled the way he challenged criminals caught red-handed.

"Yes," she shot back, unimpressed and unintimidated. "If you're anything like my Bat, the reason you're here alone right now is that you've always put the mission above any personal considerations, isn't that right? Well, here's the situation: there's a spark smoldering in the fabric of space-time. Whatever personal reason you've got for not wanting tell me about that second timeline, ask yourself if it's more important than stopping that spark before it bursts into a flame that destroys all of—"

"My parents didn't die," he said with that same eerie detachment. "In the second timeline, my parents didn't die. I grew up knowing their love, having that security. The rest of the world went to hell while the trio from the 31st Century found a new puppet to rule through. It was Ra's al Ghul. Ra's al Ghul ruled the world, but I was a happy man."

His clinical detachment faltered and the hard bitterness of the PsychoBat added, "Is that the vital information you need to extinguish your spark, Catwoman?"

"And us?"

"We… dated. There were other women, the playboy life was… It was odd. I actually _was_ what I pretend to be now, as if that script was buried inside me and I followed it unconsciously. But when I was with you… You and I clicked. It was different. After we met, I could be at a party with a dozen beautiful women lounging around the pool, but I'd be missing you. We had such a _connection_." It was the most animated he had sounded since her arrival. He stopped, as if he'd caught himself becoming too enthused, then resumed with analytical detachment. "Presumably it was because we had a history in this true timeline, a relationship, that is a correlation…eh, a _link_ on some subconscious…" he trailed off.

"Maybe we're entangled quantum particles," she offered with an elfish grin.

He raised an eyebrow.

"You know about entangled particles?" he asked skeptically.

"Right after she lightens you up," Selina answered happily, "your Catwoman needs to smack you, hard, several times in the head until you get over this notion that I'm stupid."

Again the lip twitched.

"Well that's a start," Selina observed. "You have a nice liptwitch, Bruce. I'm really sorry I can't stay and prod more of them out of you until you declare me an impossible woman. But you can walk me back to my entangled particles that link me with home." Saying this, she snaked her arm playfully around his, bringing her hand to rest on the top of his gauntlet. "And when the time is right," she whispered, pointing to her ringless fingers, "give your cat a pink sapphire."

"'Impossible woman' sounds about right," he noted.

They walked arm in arm to the point where, in an alternate Batcave, the JLA transporter was repositioned over a magical vortex. Selina showed him where each of the three oil burners was sitting, describing the cats on each and the scents of the oil they burned. She didn't know why she was going into such detail, he didn't seem all that interested in which burner (that he couldn't see and that didn't exist in his world) was white, which black and which gold… But it did seem like he enjoyed letting her prattle. He'd seemed so alone and cut off when she arrived, maybe unconsciously she was reminded what her own Bruce was like at the beginning…

"I have to go," she said finally.

"Selina," he asked seriously before she stepped into the circle, "why is it you making these dimensional jumps and not your Batman?"

Their eyes met and locked.

_Bruce, we need to talk about Zatanna… _

When she arrived, he thought Alfred had let her into the cave. It meant he'd told his Catwoman his identity. Whatever their relationship was, it was that far along. "We tortured Zatanna's magic out of her before we killed her. I wound up using it a couple times, how's that for irony…" "Events here aren't very different from my world as far as you and Zatanna and the League…" "You were there in both alternate timelines, You made me happy – We had such a connection."

_"We beat Zatanna's magic out of her before we killed her."  
"and still we wound up together"  
"I don't think there's a cause and effect."_

"I-eh," Selina stumbled uncertainly over the words while her mind raced over possible answers. "Batman is working from another angle," she managed as a facet of the truth presented itself. "With Superman. There's a Luthor involved so…" she trailed off and shrugged.

He grunted, accepting this plausible half-truth for the whole, and Selina held her breath as the vortex of color burst onto the horizon and consumed him.

* * *

Selina woke with a start. She was still wearing the boots and riding pants… She looked around. She was in her bedroom in the manor – she didn't remember going to sleep though – the vortex, the last thing she remembered was the vortex in the cave. She checked her finger instinctively – the sapphire was in place – but smaller than it had been.

"I hate this," she muttered to no one in particular. "Through the looking glass, new wrinkles each time, no wonder Jervis is crazy."

There was a strange knocking – and Selina's brow wrinkled as she realized it was coming from the window. It wrinkled even further as she turned to look and saw Superman hovering outside it. He offered a friendly salute when he saw he had her attention, and his hovering posture shifted like he was waiting for something. Playing a hunch, Selina opened the window.

"We said 7 o'clock sharp, didn't we?"

"Um, yes. Seven. Sharp," Selina agreed bravely. "Seven sharp, that's what we said."

"And here I am," Superman declared.

"Yes. There you are," she noted.

"Well?"

"Eh," she hedged, "I guess I should… tell Bruce you're here?"

"Boy you're not going to make this easy are you, Selina. Look, Bruce is at the Watchtower pulling a double shift, as we arranged. It was not easy to make that happen without his suspecting something; he's an impossibly hard man to fool. I have no idea how any of your… _colleagues_ in this town can get away with anything. There, you happy? I admit it, he's a better man. He's a better crimefighter than all of us, a better partner and a better friend. We need him in the Justice League, and I was wrong not to tell him what Zatanna and the others had done the minute I heard what had happened with Dr. Light."

"That's what this is about," Selina muttered under her breath. "That fucking mindwipe again."

"He's prepared to move past it, Selina. _If you'll let him_. We talked it out and he's ready to work with me again. I just— I am sorry that I couldn't abide by the agreement we made at the waterfall that day. When I talked to Bruce, I brought up the protocols – I'm sorry, it was relevant to the conversation, it was important to me, and I said so. I promised you I wouldn't mention it, and then I did. So here I am, your slave for the next 12 hours. So let's get up to this preserve of yours, show me your monster tiger and tell me what you want done to his pen."

Selina bit her lip.

"You're… landscaping the Catitat for me because you mentioned the protocols when you talked to Bruce about the mindwipe?" she uttered, choking down a tickle of laughter.

"And I'm ready to take my punishment like a man," he sighed, "I just figured it was going to be a lot more enlarging the spring-fed lake, like you originally said, and not so much talking about why."

"Well come on then," she purred. "Time's a wasting."

As the morning wore on, Selina wondered why the mystic whatever that governed the vortex had brought her to this world on this day. Bruce wasn't around to talk down from an ill-fated magic ritual, and it didn't seem like there was anything she needed to learn from Superman. By lunchtime, she decided it was just the Universe's way of giving her a respite. With all the Batman variants crossing her path, plus the dimension leaks at home, what better way to keep her grounded then letting her spend a few hours with her cats. The Nirvana of this world was just as welcoming and maternal as her own, and Shimbala! Watching Shimbala discover an invulnerable Kryptonian playmate for the first time reminded her of the untamable power that is a wild cat.

The tiger was intrigued when Superman entered his pen and he went immediately to investigate. Superman allowed the cat to approach and sniff his hand; he foolishly thought that concluded the introductions. He returned his attention to the watershed, building up the banks along the stream so it would form a waterfall by the time it merged into the lake… What the Man of Steel didn't realize is that a tiger is still a cat. Like any other cat, _he_ will tell you when the encounter is finished and until he does, you are not free to go about your business. So Shimbala charged, and Superman had to push him away. The cat was even more intrigued and charged more forcefully. Again Superman pushed back, and before long the two were roughhousing like Lassie and Timmy.

Selina watched through binoculars from a footbridge that passed over the lake. She watched as Superman picked up Shimbala and flew him to the top of a hill farthest from the stream, then returned to his place in time to give the base of the riverbank ten seconds or so of super-pounding before Shimbala raced down the hill and pounced on him again. Selina couldn't be certain, but she swore at one point she heard the illustrious Man of Steel muttering that he 'should have brought the dog.'

Maybe that was the lesson of this world: Cats were a force of nature. They were nature incarnate, and even a power like Superman had to accommodate them. He could do it by willingly cooperating, or he could try to force the cat to do it his way, but either way kitty had his playdate.

When the tiger had enough, he allowed Superman to return to work. When Selina had enough, she invited him back to the cabin for lunch. She was happily preparing sandwiches when Superman casually mentioned that Bruce "pulled some strings" through the Foundation to get Lois an interview with Dr. Luthor.

Selina froze, mustard knife poised over the bread, and stared.

"Lewis Luthor?" she asked, the blood draining from her face.

"Lewis?" Superman laughed, "No, heavens no. _Laura_. Selina didn't Bruce tell you that Dr. Luthor is a woman?"

"No," she said softly. "He didn't mention that. Superman – Clark – we have to get back. And we need Bruce to come back. You'll have to fess up and tell him you rigged the duty log, take over his shift."

"Selina, seriously, Laura Luthor might be a brilliant scientist but she's not what I would call a heartbreaker. I really don't think—"

"Oh don't be a schmuck," she interrupted. "If Bruce is working with a Dr. Luthor, any Dr. Luthor, then I need to talk to him, in private and like 10 minutes ago. I can't explain, just trust me, there's no time to lose and… and it's very seriously, cosmically, and universally bad."

It was Superman's turn to stare.

"Why do I have the feeling you're not joking?" he asked sternly.

"Get me home in 30 seconds or to the Watchtower in 60, and you'll get an answer to that question," she answered crisply.

* * *

When Selina reached the Watchtower's Monitor Womb, she saw her own file open on the large viewscreen. Batman was nowhere in sight. She glanced over the images on the screen and then turned to Superman.

"I've been meaning to mention for a while now," she purred with quiet amusement, "Six paragraphs on the 'naughty grin' seems a _bit_ excessive. And it really isn't a 'special power,' you know."

Superman glanced disapprovingly at the data on a sidescreen.

"They have it classified under 'incapacitate and mind control abilities'," he said genially, "It's just Lantern and Flash having a little joke is all, obviously. I'll… have a talk with them."

Selina chuckled.

"When you do, tell them the lady in question said 'that's not his _mind_, but leave it to hero-types like them to be confused on that point.'"

Before Superman could respond, Batman coughed in the doorway.

"Am I interrupting something?" he graveled.

"I was going to ask the same thing," Selina said, pointing to the file. "We need to talk about this, Bruce. Whatever you're thinking that's got you poring over my file up here, it's fucked, okay? Whatever you're thinking of doing with Dr. Luthor – magic maybe? a Seeing Ritual, because you think Zatanna did something to change me?"

"WHAT?" Superman gasped, staring at Selina. "What are y--" He stopped when he saw the look on Batman's face. It was true - Bruce was planning something. Realization dawned: Batman _had_ known about the switch in the duty logs and worse, he had known that both Selina and Superman would be occupied, leaving him free to conduct whatever experiments he was planning.

"After Dr. Light, it must've got good for them," Selina answered tersely. "She did it at least once more to a Flash villain in Keystone and-"

"And to the Secret Society of Supervillains," Batman added, cutting her off.

Superman's eyes darted from one of them to the other. He crossed his arms over his chest and let out a short sigh before adding, "And at least two more that I know about."

Selina merely nodded her head towards the file displayed on the monitor.

"And when it came out about the Society, that set you off on a research project?" she said to Batman.

"You were in the Secret Society for a time," he said flatly.

"No," she corrected, patiently. "See that's also the kind of thing where you hero-types are apt to get confused. I went to a _party_. They had an open house when they set up their 'Sinister Citadel,' they invited me and I went. Big whoop."

Batman turned a dial on the console, repositioning the image on the main screen, and then punched a button to enlarge a detail on the far right. The zoomed image showed Catwoman talking with Felix Faust and smiling a little too warmly.

"That's a party?" Batman demanded emphatically.

Selina repositioned the image just as he had done and punched the button, expanding the lowest edge of the frame.

"That's a kabob," she answered, pointing to an object Faust's left hand.

"It looks like his wand," Batman pointed out.

"I'm not having this conversation," Selina said to no one in particular.

Clark was about to interject that it did, in fact, look like a wand, but a quick sideways glance at Selina told him that in this particular case, silence was the best policy. He'd been stuck in Perry White's office with Perry and Lois going at it too many times not to learn how and when to stay out of a conversation. He stared blankly at the image, concentrating a little too hard on the wand-kabob in question… he began to convince himself there might be a wedge of green pepper just visible behind Faust's thumb.

"Look," Selina resumed in a tone of strained patience, "They flew me out to San Francisco, I listened to their pitch, I took the tour, I admired the Corinthian leather chairs in their library, the X-ray machine in their medical center and the gun cabinets in their arsenal, and then I made an early exit."

"It doesn't look like you're getting ready to make an exit," Batman said, realigning the photo yet again until Catwoman's smile filled the screen in an extreme close-up.

Clark, who now found himself without a convenient focus for his attention, turned away from the monitor. Time for phase two - convenient extraction. "I'm just going to go check on the Hydroponics Garden," he muttered, edging slowly toward the door.

"I listened to Wizard, Mirror Master and Felix Faust tell the same story," Selina said curtly, "And I smiled each time because that's what you do when you're drinking their liquor and eating their canapés. And then I made an early exit because _that's_ what you do when the guy with the kabob keeps crowding your personal space and telling you his wife doesn't understand him!"

"Wh-what?!" Superman exclaimed.

"I thought you were going to check the Hydroponics Garden," Batman spat.

"You heard that, eh?" Superman countered.

"Of course he heard," Selina sighed. "He's Batman, what did you miss the memo?"

Batman turned his back on the two of them. He began closing windows on the monitor screen, gathering papers into a folder, and giving every indication that he was ignoring their existence.

"So you were never in the Society at all?" Superman asked with a forced conversational air, accepting that there was no help for it now - he was in this conversation whether he wanted to be or not. "No auxiliary status, or, I don't know, a trial membership?"

Selina mirrored precisely the same smile that appeared on the viewscreen before it flickered out.

"You're thinking of a health club," she said sweetly. "What's honestly funny is this is damn near the same conversation I had with _them_. They had this idea that if I joined, I wouldn't expect to be PAID to perform burglaries for them. I explained – very nicely I thought, under the circumstances – that it doesn't work that way."

"I'll bet that went over well," Batman muttered, barely audible.

Selina shot him a look, but he'd resumed the "ignoring you" demeanor, so she continued to direct her comments to Superman.

"They called me for two jobs over the next six weeks," she went on as if she'd never been interrupted. "For which I was very well paid (You remember that sweet Porsche I had before the Jag?), and I never heard from them again. I assume they found some member or other who's _almost_ as good as me and would do it for the brownie points."

"Interesting," Superman nodded. "Shadow Thief probably, I believe he went on their rolls very early on, didn't he Batman?"

Batman turned, glowered, and grunted.

"I'm going home," he declared. "Clark, if you'll finish the shift."

He nodded, and Batman walked out. Selina met Superman's eye and then followed to the transporter.

"Don't do it, Bruce," she called softly. "Whatever you're planning with Dr. Luthor, it can't end well. If you wanted to know what happened with me and the Secret Society all those years ago, you only had to ask—"

"Selina," he blurted, spinning around mid-step to face her. "You're assuming that _you know_ what really happened. You're _assuming_ your memories are accurate. If they- If she-"

"_And," _she continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "If you want to know when I stopped stealing, it would be so much better to ask me about it rather than finding some radical physicist that… that for all you know could be crazier and more dangerous than the whole Secret Society put together."

"What makes you think you can trust your memories?" he asked grimly.

"What makes _you_ think you can trust Dr. Luthor?" she retorted.

"It isn't a question of trust, it's a simple exercise in scientific methodology, constructing an experiment to validate a worthy hypothesis that could redefine—"

"Pffft," she interjected.

"Bless you," Superman called in the distance.

Selina looked at Batman.

Batman looked at Selina.

"Cave," he mouthed silently.

She nodded, and a minute later the conversation resumed in the privacy of the Batcave.

"Dr. Luthor needs to monitor a physical space across multiple subatomic spectra during a magic ritual," Batman explained impassively. "What mystics call 'a seeing' is as good as any, and she's undergone extensive training with practicing magic users to be able to—"

"You're staging a seeing ritual with Dr. Luthor in order to access the moment I stopped stealing," Selina said over him, just as impassively. "And Bruce, it is a colossal mistake. If you go through with this…"

"Don't stop there, that's quite a threat you started off."

"It's not a threat. It's… It's just something I know. If you take that step, a spark ignites and… very bad consequences."

"How do you know that?"

"I _know_…Bruce, I know I can trust my thoughts _and_ my memories and my _feelings_ where you and I are concerned. I will tell you about the moment I stopped stealing – but you have to promise me you'll call off this ritual."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes," she smirked. "I'd also like to note for the record that this is quite a tiny little stone for a pink sapphire."

Underneath the mask, his brow crinkled.

"Yes," he agreed, "but it's quite large for a pink diamond. You thought I gave you an undersized sapphire for an engagement ring?"

All Selina's carefully constructed words to explain her decision to stop stealing froze as a creeping icy shock congealed at the base of her spine and spidered through her entire body.

"eng'd…?" she said woozily.

* * *

…to be continued…

Author's Note: a "Reader's Companion" with all the Elseworld and other comic references up until this point explained (and rich with scans, dial-up folks beware) is now available on the Cat-Tales website, linked on Author Profile page.


	7. The Berliani

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 7: The Berliani_

* * *

In the Batcave, the cats which supported three dishes of scented oil regarded each other with the cold, lifeless eyes of statues from their respective corners of the JLA transporter. A few feet away, Batman, Superman, and Jason Blood regarded each other without much more warmth from their positions around the conference table.

To a hero like Superman, who battled galactic threats and homegrown menace on a regular basis, bad news about a foe's capabilities was part of the job. Still, Lex Luthor was a special case and the thought of Luthor commanding magic, one of the few forces in the universe that could affect him, was very much a fright. When Luthor acquired a Kryptonite ring it posed a serious threat, and Kryptonite, while deadly, was at least _predictable_. But magic, there was no telling what a mind like Luthor's might conjure with power like that at his disposal…

Batman wrestled with his own dilemma, similar to Clark's yet unique. No one knew what had become of Lex Luthor after he resigned the presidency in disgrace, and all efforts to find him by conventional means had been unsuccessful. Now they had new intelligence: it was possible – it was _likely_ – that Luthor had access to magic. If he was experimenting as his counterpart in at least one alternate reality was doing, it suggested a new and more effective way to locate him. Jason said an experienced wizard could sense when the lines of magic shift from their normal patterns and the signature of a neophyte like Luthor would be easy to spot. He had no doubt that he could find Luthor with the simplest of spells… It was… it was obviously the best strategy from a practical crimefighting perspective, but the idea of MORE magic, after the moonstone and the witch orb and a vortex still churning INSIDE the floor of the Batcave, with Selina off god-knows-where through that magic portal… the very idea of allowing even more magic into this process… As much as the strategist told him it was necessary, the crisis before them was severe, time was of the essence, and given the forces they were dealing with Jason's magical assistance was both timely and appropriate; the emotional man could only see that he'd allowed the tiniest chink to remain unplugged and now a flood of magic was pouring through it, uncontrolled and uncontrollable…

Jason felt wronged. Bruce's inflexible hostility to anything remotely mystical was familiar by now, and if that hostility had become more pointedly antagonist in the last few days, the reason was certainly understandable. Superman's reaction to the Luthor development was also understandable, you couldn't expect him to rejoice at the news his deadliest enemy was dabbling in the magical arts. It was all perfectly understandable, but Jason still couldn't help feeling persecuted. He himself had done nothing, absolutely nothing. He hadn't lobotomized any villains, wiped anyone's memories, made magical forces available to Lex Luthor, and he certainly never raised a finger, magical or otherwise, against Selina! On the contrary, he'd gone to considerable trouble to _protect_ her and at the moment she was the only participant in the whole affair he could _stand_. And yet he, Jason Blood, innocent bystander, had somehow been appointed spokesperson for the magical arts, defender of its right to exist and scapegoat for all those who abused it. He abhorred Zatanna's reckless excesses as much as they did, but any time either one of them pronounced the word "magic" they did it with this oblique snarl aimed directly at him…

"Alright," Superman said finally. "I'm not much happier about it than Bruce is, but I really don't see that we have a choice. If Luthor is a part of this, we have to find him. If his dabbling in magic gives us a way to find him, we do it."

Superman was equally piqued at Bruce. He might not be a strategist of Batman's caliber, but Superman knew his enemy and he could see how this all came about. As president, Luthor would have had intelligence on all the big research being conducted. He had a fixation on Bruce Wayne; what Wayne had Luthor had to have. He wouldn't have cared about niche research like this string theory that couldn't even produce a decent bomb; he wouldn't have even _noticed_ it until that name caught his eye among the underwriters: Wayne Foundation. _That's_ why Lex Luthor had magic to use against him, because of Bruce…

Batman touched his glove to the edge of the mask above his eye and rubbed as if massaging a headache.

He'd moved beyond piqued into flat-out pissed. He told Clark _specifically_ not to come to the house. Ignored. He told him _specifically_ not to worry about the anomaly in the study. Ignored. That last stunt not only wasted time, it gave Selina an opening she wouldn't have otherwise had to go sphere-hopping again. It would be so much better if they were running a single operation, not each doing their own thing this way. Clark should see that. Clark, the married man - Didn't he to realize how hard Selina was to control in the first place? Was a little cooperation too much to ask from a friend and an ally??

"Alright," he growled finally. "Does it have to be here? Couldn't you at least take it outside of the house before you conduct – whatever it is you're going to do?"

"I can," Jason said coldly, "but seeing as the dimensional instabilities are centered around your house, Bruce, I think it would be more effective if I did it here. Ideally I'd like to go upstairs to the study where we conducted the initial seeing. Whether it helped ignite the spark or not, Selina and Etrigan both saw the spark in it and—"

"Yes, yes, alright fine," Batman spat.

"There is no need for you to be present," Jason went on mildly. "You could stay here and monitor the transporter in case Selina returns."

Batman looked towards the transporter and grunted. He was aware he was being "humored and handled" but was prepared to allow it. Selina really might return at any time, and her last trip had provided crucial intelligence about Luthor. There was no telling what she might learn this time, it could even be something to render the magical Luthor-hunt moot.

* * *

Alfred walked briskly into the lobby of the Battenkill Inn, kicked the snow from his boots and warmed himself in front of the large, welcoming fireplace.

"Been out for another walk then, Mr. Pennyworth?" the observant landlord asked.

Alfred merely nodded, fearing his teeth would chatter if he tried to speak.

"Keeps you young, don't it; the brisk mountain air."

Rather than encourage this friendly banter, Alfred grunted in a dismissive fashion – and then scolded himself for the lapse. He would be a fool indeed if he did not recognize the curt grunt as Master Bruce's – as well as the sentiment to take all your well-meaning attentiveness far, far away so I may focus my attention on this present dilemma.

The innkeeper meant well, Alfred knew. They all thought he was a great walker, so devoted to their scenic mountain trails that he had extended his stay to go on hiking through the beautiful countryside for another week. In fact, he was _pacing_. He began pacing the day Miss Selina called telling him to extend his trip but refused to say why. Then Master Bruce called with a _few_ more details that were more alarming than Miss Selina's silence. So he'd started to pace, but that quaint little room with the quilt and the canopy bed and the needlepoint rug was not quite conducive to a properly energetic pacing. So he'd taken his coat and set off on the mountain trails. But however vigorously he walked, he could not drive the agitation from his body.

Whatever was meant by "dimensional anomalies," they were occurring in Wayne Manor, which was his responsibility. They were occurring while Master Bruce and Miss Selina were in residence, and capable though Batman and Catwoman may be to deal with such matters on their own, they were still his charges while they lived in that house. The very idea that he was banished – for his "safety" (not five minutes after Master Bruce assured him the anomalies posed no physical threat) – it was more than any well-trained gentleman's gentleman could bear.

And yet he was ordered, by both master and mistress, to remain where he was.

* * *

When they reached the study, Superman watched, helplessly baffled, while a Hawkman chimera picked his severed wings off the Aubusson rug, revealing a sticky, reddish-black bloodstain. Hawkman followed the other spectral Leaguers out the door, just as he had before, and Superman knelt to touch the tacky goo clinging to the carpet fibers just as it vanished into nothingness right under his fingers.

He looked up at Jason in horrified wonder, and Jason managed a kindly nod meant to convey a sympathy he did not feel. He pulled a small, low, claw-footed table from the wall and set it in the center of the room where it had been placed for the first seeing. He retrieved his silver bowl and the bottle containing the water of Avalon from the shelf where they had been placed for safekeeping once the anomalies began. He set them up just as before, then positioned his hands over them, closed his eyes, and began murmuring a mantra from a language long forgotten. Superman watched in fascination as wisps of glowing mist rose from the water in the bowl and took the form of a rotating ball between Jason Blood's hands. The mist whitened here and darkened there, taking on a deep bluish tint, and Superman saw to his astonishment the very image of the Earth as seen from space. A yellow glow appeared at the southernmost tip of Africa, and suddenly the words "finis africae" seemed to pop into his mind, although he hadn't heard anything.

Jason Blood sighed, his head tipped backwards, and his arms dropped to his sides. The mist slowed its rotation, losing form, and spiraled sluggishly downward into the water.

Jason opened his eyes and met Superman's. "Finis Africae," he pronounced. "The end of Africa."

"It's a start," Superman noted – as the sound of girlish giggling erupted outside the study door. He turned to see Jason staring out the doorway in horror. Selina was there, a Selina that Clark recognized immediately as an apparition from an earlier point in the timeline. He knew this from the yellow ruffles she wore and the two bottles of champagne tucked under her arm. She lead a trio of women, each with their own open bottles from which they drank as the procession continued down the hallway: Dinah Lance, in aqua ruffles that weren't any more flattering than Selina's yellow; then Lois in a respectable paisley dress; and finally Harley Quinn in a short, tight, shocking pink outfit that looked more suited to a nightclub than a wedding reception.

"Dick and Barbara's wedding," Clark explained as Selina growled something like "Mrs. Wayne, my ass," while Lois and Dinah clinked their bottles together and repeated "Missus Wayne meowlass."

"I see," Jason said with polite detachment. "Perhaps we should return to the cave without further delay."

Superman nodded.

_Finis Africae_ turned out to be much more than "a start" once Superman and Jason told Bruce of their findings. He opened what he called "an existing data-analysis matrix" Oracle had created when Luthor first vanished. They'd been using it for months, he said, to try and locate the former president. Now he could add Southern Africa to the parameters. In less than a minute the screen filled with data, which Batman skimmed with satisfaction.

"The King David is a luxury hotel in East London, Wild Coast region of South Africa," he announced. "Six weeks after Luthor resigned, they were hiring two new chefs, a chamber maid, and a waiter."

Superman chuckled. "Meaning Luthor stole half their staff away when he moved into the area."

"Precisely," Batman answered as a printer sprung to life. "Those are the names of the former employees. We go to East London, find their families, find out where those individuals are working now, and we've found Luthor."

* * *

Jason Blood agreed to monitor the transporter while Batman pursued the Luthor lead with Superman. The vortex churning beneath it made him uneasy, consisting as it did of his own magic intermingled with Etrigan's. He'd had little time since the cataclysm began to wonder what the future held for him – assuming he had one. If they prevented the crisis spark from nullifying existence, it meant a future without Etrigan. The idea was almost incomprehensible. For fifteen hundred years, give or take, his soul had been knit to Etrigan's. Now that the bond was broken he was, technically, free of the demon. It meant liberation beyond his wildest hopes and dreams, but Jason was long past the ability to feel happiness, or even satisfaction, at this release he once dreamed of.

What did it really mean? It meant Etrigan was free. Could Jason really live content in a world where Etrigan ran free? He had grown accustomed to living on while all those he knew and cared about died: from illness, from injury, from old age, in war and in peacetime. Claire… Nicole… Lilyaene… how many others? Warm and alive for time, then ash, nothing but a memory for the rest of eternity. He'd grown used to it. But the scale of the dying and the cruelty, the _depravity_ if a monster like Etrigan was free to kill and maim and conquer as he wished… Could Jason really live comfortable and at ease in a little villa somewhere knowing that was going on in the world?

By the same token, could he re-bind himself to Etrigan? If it were even possible to remake the magical bond that nature herself had dissolved, would he be able to willingly imprison himself again? Now, with full knowledge of what he was getting into?

He thought of Etrigan setting himself up as Lord of the Americas, a throne made from the ground bones of those who tried to oppose him – Bruce's corpse undoubtedly, and Selina's, possibly Superman's, Flash certainly, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Black Canary. How many of those mortal children from that recurring shadowplay in the study would stand against a demon of Hell, blinded by their "superpowers" into thinking they had any chance against the power of the cosmos?

The controls of the transporter began to light and flicker as a bitter irony curled Jason's lips into a mirthless smile. If they were right, the Bruce Wayne of however many dimensions was making war on magic because he thought it robbed his Catwoman of her right to choose. But Jason – now that he was freer than he had ever been, it seemed he had no choice at all.

The vortex below the transporter suddenly sprung up like a geyser through the floor of the transporter, bathing the chamber in a whirlpool of purple light, which then spun bluer, greener, yellower, and white before it dissipated, revealing Catwoman standing with a dazed and weary expression. She steadied herself against the side of the transporter, tore off her glove and, from the look of it, scrutinized the ring on her finger. Then she regarded him with quizzical recognition.

"Jason?" she said skeptically.

"The man, the myth, the legend," he replied gamely.

She gave a sickly grin and stepped out of the transporter.

"And is… Bruce (?) around?" she asked cautiously.

"He and Superman have gone in search of Luthor," Jason informed her. "Not Doctor Luthor," he added hurriedly. "They've gone in search of the former president, Alexander Luthor, bald man."

She breathed, clearly relieved.

"Okay, well, in that case, meow."

"While Bruce is out of the picture, we should perhaps take advantage of this opportunity to speak freely," Jason suggested.

"Upstairs," Selina answered, removing her mask. "I could use a drink, something stronger than tea."

* * *

"That was a waste of time when we do not have time to waste," Batman growled, marching furiously out of the service entrance of the King David Hotel in East London.

"They might have kept forwarding addresses or something," Superman protested. "It was worth a try before we go bothering their families."

"If they'd kept that kind of information it would have been in their database, it would have been in the downloads. We would have known back in the cave how to proceed. The fact that it wasn't made the families the most promising source for—"

"It just seems so rude, so intrusive—"

"—more information."

No more was said until they reached the summit above a quiet, residential community.

"These aren't henchmen, Bruce," Superman said pointedly. "These are good, decent, hardworking people. To go to their _families_—"

"I'm not talking about punching anybody's grandmother, Clark. I'm saying knock on the door, smile your best public relations smile, and ask as politely as you want where their son is."

"You really think that's going to get us an answer?"

Batman stared at him flatly.

"I'm absolutely certain that it won't."

* * *

While Jason prepared a highball, Selina had gone upstairs to her room and returned with a small, red-leather box. She opened it, took the sapphire from her finger, and placed it carefully around a finger-size oval raised in the white felt lining. She set it gently on the table in front of her and stared at it. As she sipped her drink, she briefly told Jason the story. How Bruce and she agreed on a one-night separation the night of the MOMA opening, how he slipped the empty box in with her things before she set off for the penthouse, how he enclosed a taunt rather than the ring, declaring it to be the prize if she 'earned' it in the course of the party.

Then she grew quiet, reliving the conversation that followed. _ "Marriage, Selina? I don't know if I'll ever want to be married. I may never be capable of that kind of… vulnerability." _

She had accepted that what they had now was all there would ever be. It was quite a lot, considering how they started. Selina didn't believe for one second that Zatanna's magic was involved in what had happened between them. Nevertheless, it was a pretty magical progression: from "Breaking and entering is a crime in this city" to "I've always loved you."

It was a lot, from where they started to have reached this glittering pink gem in a Cartier's ring box. It _was_. And if there was an alternate world where they went further and had a baby together, there was also one where she – she paused to gag on the thought – where she actually wore those horrific _goggles_. So as far as Selina was concerned, the "reality" of these alternate realities was suspect at best and she could dismiss the couple with the baby as easily as she did Poison Ivy on the patio… What she could not dismiss quite so easily was one of these "pink sapphire" worlds that seemed so close to her own history, these Bruces who were so like hers that they shared that same look, the searching vault eyes, the cold agonizing silence before they'd pronounce that "No" with I'm-Batman finality… one of _them_ had given her a diamond instead of a sapphire that night. One of them said "Will you marry me" instead of "Those words that mean love and commitment to everyone else, to me they're two bodies in an alley…"

_And_ it was one of them, so like her own Bruce, that employed a Dr. Luthor to go poking into her past because he thought Zatanna used magic to change her.

"Would you like another?" Jason offered, lifting the decanter.

"Sure," she answered dully.

"Selina, I'm sure the experience of dimension-hopping is unsettling, but if I may intrude on your musings, I think we really must discuss what I learned about The Berliani."

She looked up at him, and Jason was struck by the felinity of her expression – weary, irate at being pressed when she was clearly tired and not wanting to be bothered, and yet resigned to the bothering for what more could one expect from a non-cat. He wondered how he ever came to doubt Selina Kyle's feline nature.

"Berliani," she repeated. "That's the name that Zatara mentioned? 'The fire of the Berliani comes again.' You found out what it means?"

"I did," Jason nodded. "It's quite a tale. And it makes me wonder if any success you have dissuading these alternate Bruce Waynes from the ritual will have any effect in the end."

He set down his glass, took a breath, and assumed a story-telling posture.

"There is a legend among magic-users," he began as if reciting a story in the exact words prescribed by some ancient ritual. "There was monastery built at a place called Berliani in the north of Italy just after the fall of Rome. They were custodians, it was said, of secret knowledge they had salvaged from the libraries of the Caesars when the only civilization they had known fell to chaos. Manuscripts of dark magicians from as far away as India were collected within their walls. Black and terrible knowledge that had been scattered throughout the world, never meant to be brought together in a single place –or a single mind –or a single soul. It was said the 'monks' of this monastery were monks in name only. For appearances sake they lived as a Catholic cloister, but they were no holy men devoted to prayer and study. They were a commune of terrible wizards whose lust for power was matched only by their wanton depravity.

"For 39 years they had practiced their dark sorcery, when a traveler came to their gate bearing parchments and artifacts unlike any ever seen. Whether they came from China, the new world, or from Krypton we can only speculate today; all we know is the monks of Berliani had never seen their like. They vowed to do anything to obtain these treasures, and the traveler's demands were very trifling: he asked only to be made abbot, to be supreme master of the monastery and lord of all its riches and power. Wild with greed, the monks killed their present abbot and feasted that night on his flesh. His heart they cut out and gave to the traveler, who consumed it whole in order to absorb the victim's power into his own.

"The act was so vile, it is said, the godforce itself rejected it. The Universe, the Universal Is, decided this new unholy magick that would grow by feeding on another was not to exist. So, like an immune response, it acted simply and unconsciously to… _remove it_… from existence.

"The new abbot, now called The Black Abbot, began directing the magicks of the abbey in new ways. He sought to master the Music of the Spheres. At his behest, the wizard-monks conquered each of the four elements in turn. For a decade they devoted themselves to no other pursuit but to isolate the purest essence of each. At long last one monk was successful, and the Earth element was theirs to command. More years passed and another wizened old mystic isolated the essence of Air… then another, and the Water element was conquered as well… but still the Music of the Spheres was unattainable. It taunted the Black Abbot in his dreams, filling his mind with its melody and an unquenchable thirst to possess it. He spurred his subjects on to unheard of feats of magic, but another decade passed and the fire element still eluded them. Without that, they were no closer to their goal.

"The Black Abbot consulted the darkest magicks of the abbey and conjured a deep spell of ecstasy and an even deeper spell of torment. He gave his monks a potent taste of each, and promised the one as reward for success and the other as punishment for failure. For another seven years they toiled, and each night were doled out their portion of bliss or anguish in proportion to the day's success. At the end of this time, a novice who had not yet been granted the title of wizard came upon the method in an ancient Macedonian scroll. That month, under the next full moon, the essence of the Fire element was obtained.

"But nothing more. It was inadequate, and still in his dreams the Music of the Spheres taunted the Black Abbot. His thirst turned to hunger and then to lust. The answer burned within him. They needed a fifth – the unknown fifth element. The Black Abbot, by now gripped by a madness beyond anything known, determined that the missing element was Innocence. They needed, so they thought, to distill an essence of Innocence. They found a peasant family poor enough and desperate enough to sell their daughter. They used their magicks to impregnate this girl, creating a child of the four elemental forces themselves. No one knows what became of the mother, but the child they raised as a daughter of the abbey. She was educated as no female was at the time, but not in the academic sense, rather in art and music. Her plainsong, it was said, could draw life from wilting plants in the garden. She was Innocence and Beauty and Gaiety personified. And when she turned 16… they sacrificed her. They sacrificed her with no more thought than they would slaughtering a boar for their Samhain feast. They cut out her heart and boiled it into an elixir they believed to be the power of powers, the essence of the Universal Is.

"The Black Abbot consumed this potion – and died on the spot. It is described that simply in the scrolls, he consumed the potion and he died. No narrative of writhing or death agonies, he simply 'consumed it and died.' The monks thought at first he must have transcended to a higher form – until the wailing began. The girl, for 16 years she had lived among them thinking herself a beloved daughter. Not one of them, hardened and murderous wizards though they were, could pretend they did not recognize her voice. She had _become_ the Music of the Spheres, and the Music could not be silenced. She wailed until each of the wizard-monks had taken their lives, and when the last of them was dead the wailing continued until the very stones of the monastery crumbled to dust."

"What a cheery little anecdote," Selina observed.

* * *

Batman's interrogation methods exploited the particular emotions, mostly fear, his presence provoked. Superman's did too, but in his case the feeling elicited was usually awe. In a place like Beacon Bay, East London, the awe-of-Superman-standing-on-your-doorstep approach rarely failed to produce results.

But at the home of Clive and Ansa Nahoon, parents of John, former sous-chef at the King David hotel, the reaction was exactly what Batman predicted: Nothing. Polite nothing, apologetic nothing, but nothing just the same.

"Sorry, Superman, but we've been sworn to secrecy. You wouldn't want us to break our word, would you?"

He tried for fifteen minutes before giving up. At last he rejoined Batman on the summit, but before he could even report his failure, Batman held up a portable datascreen.

"Got it," he announced. "They called their son as soon as you left. Cel tower in Gonubie."

"What? How?" Superman gasped.

"I knew Luthor would have left instructions to be notified if anyone started poking around – especially you. I intercepted the call, traced it to a cel tower in Gonubie."

Superman raised a disapproving eyebrow.

"Which gives us what -- a couple-hundred-square mile area to search? Looking for _one_ person?"

"Actually, it's a 500 ft. tower and African wireless companies don't have the broadcast restrictions American ones do. According to the company's specs, that tower has a coverage radius of about twenty miles - so more like thirteen-hundred square miles."

"Do you know how long it will take to search a radius like that to find a single individual" he asked archly. "Even for me that's hours."

"_If_ you were looking for an individual," Batman replied flatly. "Luckily, you only have to find the _house_."

"And how am I supposed to pick out the one house that Luthor's…" Superman paused mid-question as realization dawned.

Batman's lip twitched slightly as he answered Superman's unfinished question. "All you have to do is a quick flyby scanning of the buildings. Luthor's will be the only house in thirteen hundred square miles that's covered in…"

They finished the answer in unison "…_lead-based paint_."

* * *

"What a cheery little anecdote," Selina observed.

"Magic can go too far," Jason declared. "It would please Bruce very much, for that's the lesson of the story. Magic can go too far and if it does… an immune response on the part of the universe will remove it."

"I don't understand," Selina said. "_That's_ what we're dealing with? Jason, I don't understand. We had a theory: it was Bruce, it was these Bruce/Luthor teams concocting their rituals to see if Zatanna's magic changed me. I've _seen_ them, I found two of those Bruce Waynes, it happened just like we thought. That _has_ to be what silenced the strings. How does this Berliani thing fit in?"

"We've assumed this was a chance occurrence, Selina. Multiple Bruce Waynes happen to arrive at the same conclusion and act in such a way as to light the spark. But Zatara's warning indicates otherwise. 'The Fire of the Berliani burns again,' he said. Magic gone too far, HIS magic gone too far and triggering an immune response. Bruce is a, a white blood cell, if you will."

He stopped as Selina smirked at the phrase. Sensing that she was squelching flat out laughter, Jason paused a moment for her to compose herself and then continued.

"Selina, think: when the crisis began, the seeing, the spark, what was the first thing to be dissolved by this smoldering flame of unexistence? It was the bond between me and Etrigan. The first thing it did was destroy the first magic it encountered. Think, the fire of the Berliani… Zatara's magic, inherited by Zatanna, is inherently unsafe," Jason went on finally. "She has used white magic, a positive force meant to work _in harmony with nature_, to lobotomize a man who was already captured and helpless. She used white magic _against an ally_ when she changed Bruce's memories. And she used white magick against Flash's old adversary the Top to _change his moral makeup_. There is simply no way to reconcile that with 'acting with nature.' To make white magic behave like black magic should not be possible, no magic-user could use that force in that way. But Zatanna _did_, because she merely speaks the result she wants without any thought to the power being called or the way it is used… It is inherently unsafe. And this is the result. She somehow crossed a line, just like the Berliani, that was so utterly wrong, the Universe's immune system has acted, through Bruce, to remove it."

"And take the rest of existence with it?" Selina exclaimed, "That's a bit over the top isn't it? I think the expression is 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater.'"

"It's not a conscious act," Jason shrugged. "It's not a divine punishment like famine or flood. If I'm right, it's simply a… what I've already said, an immune response, no more deliberate or punitive than a fever raising your body temperature to burn away an infection."

Selina fingered the edge of the box thoughtfully.

"So if all I've done is stop a few white blood cells—"

"The immune response will send more," Jason declared. "Until the disease is wiped out."

"You're saying I've WASTED all this time!" Selina exploded. "There was an OWL, Jason, there was an Owl-Man – with a dog collar! _And_ I was naked at one point… and as if that's not bad enough, one of them… prntlyskmetomryhm," she murmured, all the breath suddenly dropping from behind her voice.

"I'm afraid I didn't catch that," Jason noted blandly.

"Apparently asked me to marry him," she pronounced through defiantly clenched teeth.

Jason merely raised an eyebrow.

"Yes… well," he went on at last, "with respect to your complaint, I would have to say no, in all likelihood you have _not_ completely wasted your time. Even before the 'tether' Bruce requested, the vortex was created to transport you across infinite dimensions into those which are specifically tied to this crisis. The 'tether,' to be honest Selina, was something of a placebo. Bruce was… well, he can be quite… that is to say—"

"I think I understand, Jason."

He coughed. "Yes quite, I imagine you would. In any case, you've experienced several worlds that are all connected in some way to this cosmic instability. If you're able to see past this… eh, this _relationship_ angle," he noted, gesturing towards the Cartier box as if shooing a troubling insect, "you may be able to identify a common element which will illuminate the true source of the crisis and show us how to proceed."

"The relationship _is_ the common theme, Jason. Me and him, together, that's the only thing running through all of these worlds."

Jason looked uncomfortable and clumsily fingered his collar.

"Selina, I hesitate to raise a delicate subject, but if Zatara and therefore Zatanna's magic is the root cause of this, if Zatanna used her powers to commit some 'magical sin' and your relationship with Bruce is the only common theme in these worlds you've seen, then I fear you must prepare yourself for the possibility that—"

"Zatanna did not do anything to me," she interrupted simply. "You don't have to hem and haw about it; I'm not Bruce and I'm not going to smack you around just for suggesting it. But Jason, I am _telling_ you: the Master Detective got hold of a bad scent there. I don't know about _all_ Zatannas everywhere – god knows it's the only possible explanation for flat-chested non-purple goggle chick from the Gotham Post up in the study… But I know, Jason, I _know_ in that 'here and now' you made such a point of yesterday, that _our _Zatanna didn't do a thing to _me_."

"How can you be so sure?" Jason asked, struck by the serene confidence with which she spoke - and wondering if it could not itself be evidence of a spell.

In reply, Selina smiled a strange, secret smile… and Jason produced a mental pencil and drew a thick, definite line though his theory of magical cat-tampering. It was _Claire's_ smile…

"I can be sure," she said with a charged finality. "You can trust me or not when I say I know what I'm talking about. But that's all the answer you get."

…It was Claire's smile whenever she drank absinthe, when she smelled croissants or saw a street artist. It was Claire remembering Paris… And it meant whatever it was that made Selina so certain, she wouldn't tell him because it was none of his business, no more than he would tell her intimate details about his past with Claire.

"Fine," Jason replied crisply. "In the interests of proceeding before the fabric of space-time erupts into a flame of un-existence, let us say that I'm satisfied with your typically female and feline assurances uncorroborated by any rational explanation whatsoever."

"Meow," Selina answered.

"Quite," Jason continued. "But Selina, just because she didn't succeed doesn't mean she didn't try – even in the here and now, Zatanna may have _tried _to use magic to change you."

"Yeah okay point," she said lightly, fussing with the ring box in a markedly feline fashion. Then she sighed. "I'm not saying she doesn't deserve a cosmic spanking, Jason. But that Top guy in Keystone, she actually _DID_ change him and that was years ago. That didn't set off any Berliani disasters did it? And this last AU I visited, it looks like she was giving out frequent flyer miles to half the Justice League turning their enemies around. So why is this happening now, and what makes me such a big deal?"

Jason looked grave.

"You 'meowed' a moment ago. I'm not joking. Selina, you are… 'a cat' in ways I do not fully understand. I was practicing magic for more than a millennium before Zatanna's great grandparents were born, and I would not have the first idea how to alter the moral makeup of a cat. Your own little 'Whiskers' was explaining the feline canon just the other day: _'Am I afraid of it? If so, run. If not, can I eat it? If so, eat.'_ And so on. How would one begin to flip that around? The Top fellow you mentioned, in Keystone? It would be child's play to change him. Taking someone from a minus-five to a plus-three is ethically repugnant, but it is POSSIBLE, you just _add eight_. Taking someone from…from, how to even describe it, from _chocolate_ to _Thursday_ is not possible! It's nonsensical."

"So what happens when magic is flummoxed by nonsense?" Selina asked. "You tell it to turn chocolate into Thursday right now what do we get?"

"Nothing much," Jason shrugged. "Certainly nothing of a Berliani nature. The best analogy I can make is if Bruce were to sing into that computer of his instead of typing into a C-prompt. Or if you typed a command into your computer to make a dog fetch a stick."

"Then we're still missing something," Selina said, shaking her head.

"So it would seem," Jason agreed.

* * *

… to be continued…


	8. Circular Reasoning

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 8: Circular Reasoning_

* * *

Selina felt that, even if they were still missing a piece of the puzzle, she needed a break from the insanity of dimension hopping. She was determined to take that break, right up until she walked into the kitchen and saw Jean Paul Valley in Bruce's Batman costume –not even that disgusting AzBat armor he made but Bruce's costume! Except for the cowl, he wasn't wearing the cowl, which somehow made it worse. It was the look she liked best on Bruce, when he was working in the cave or finishing up the logs after patrol. On Valley, the sight made her blood boil.

He dared take Bruce's place, he dared call himself Batman, the memory of those encounters with that _thing_ in Batman's costume made her sick even now. And now here he was, home from one of his earliest patrols in that mantle that wasn't his (since he hadn't gotten around to polluting the costume with his revolting new designs), and not only was he taking Bruce's place, he was living in Bruce's house. Selina knew it had happened, knew he'd been living in the manor at that time, but actually _seeing_ it, seeing him standing in the kitchen – in Alfred's kitchen – standing in front of the stove making himself cocoa in a mug with a gold W etched on the side… It was more than she could stand.

* * *

Neither Batman nor Superman knew what to make of it. They'd found Luthor easily enough: Just as Batman predicted, a house strategically coated with lead-based paint was hard to miss. And what lead could shield from Superman's X-ray vision was no obstacle for Batman's terrestrial surveillance equipment.

What the preliminary scans uncovered had both men puzzled: The security system was… _substandard_. The detection grid was the sort a typical millionaire might have for a vacation house, and the modifications were a generation behind what Gotham rogues used as perimeter defenses. For a figure of Luthor's stature, the whole setup was absurdly inadequate.

At first, Superman was cautiously optimistic: Luthor considered himself safe in East London. If he thought he was perfectly concealed and undetectable, he'd see no need for advanced, first-tier defenses. Batman never trusted an enemy's oversight. The more it looked like a stupid mistake, the more he suspected a trap. But he admitted (once Superman pointed it out for the fifth time), that Luthor had been over-confident before. So they continued into the compound. Batman made short work of the perimeter system. He deactivated the K-metal beams that posed the only threat to Superman, after which the Man of Steel made the kind of wall-bursting entrance for which he was feared and famous.

It was then that the minor mystery of the security mushroomed into the major mystery of Luthor himself. Or what _had_ been Luthor… What had once been Lex Luthor, proud, ambitious and dangerous Lex Luthor, the formidable intellect, the brilliant scientist, the ruthless industrialist, the Machiavellian politician… was huddled around a small grouping of objects like a wild, injured animal protecting its kill – or perhaps a junkie his stash.

The sight was so incongruous; Superman was shocked into an equally uncharacteristic posture, arms dropping from his hands-on-hips battle stance as he leaned forward, squinting in disbelief.

"Luthor?" he asked, unable to reconcile this humbled, pathetic, hollow-eyed specimen with the nemesis who'd plagued him for decades.

He received no response beyond a wild-eyed stare. Superman took a step backward – just as Batman entered the gaping hole in the wall.

* * *

Selina awoke to a noise… an insanely annoying noise… a layered, echoey, whiny tone…tone_s_…

What in god's name was that?

If that was the mystic sound of the universe, turning it off didn't seem like that bad an idea… The noise made her teeth hurt. It made her ears hurt. And most of all it made her head hurt.

She opened an eye and –damn, it was bright–

Selina considered the possibility that her head hurt on its own without the noise. She closed her eye again and tried to concentrate… Dimension hopping. She was dimension hopping… the vortex of color… and then waking up here with that gratingly moaning whine of a noise and one whopping headache.

She felt her head, but this didn't feel like the "I got hit with a brick" headache she experienced on an earlier jump. There was no throbbing lump. Her head just hurt… and her mouth was dry. Selina groaned piteously as she realized she had a hangover.

She forced an eye open again and focused on – acoustic tiling. She opened her other eye uncertainly and looked around. She was in… the back room of the Iceberg Lounge? A cold shudder vibrated up her arms and she hugged herself – at which point she noticed she was in costume.

With her movement, the insanely annoying noise pitch shifted and Selina noticed what was making it. A few feet away, a large viney bush (or perhaps it was a small indoor tree?) was holding a glass of water in its, eh, _fronds_ and running a leaf around the dampened rim to produce that nerve-wracking tone. Once Selina identified the source of the sound, she saw that the bush-tree held four more glasses, while two other plants in the room held glasses of their own and were all – well, they were all doing the same thing, running moist leaves around the glasses to produce that same rim-tone… whether they were doing it to "make music" or drive her insane was anybody's guess.

Despite her painfully dry throat, she managed to hiss at them. The tall one waddled towards her, offered her its fullest glass, dipped a leaf into another and held its wet, leafy tendril against her forehead like a washcloth.

"No," she ordered, shoving it away as energetically as her hungover state would permit. The plant did something of a doubletake, like Whiskers shooed from jumping into her lap. She gathered that the bush-tree was trying to be helpful, so she added a milder "No thank you."

It nodded, and Selina got up, steadied herself against the wall, and stepped cautiously out into the corridor – then she steadied herself again when she looked across the hall at the sign on Oswald's… or what in her world had always been Oswald's office door:

Toxicodendron Rydbergii Lounge  
P.Isley Proprietor

* * *

"If he's using magic, this could be an illusion," Batman said, so softly that only Superman's hearing could have made out the words.

Superman looked again at the incompressible image before him, scanning the bedraggled, wild-eyed, bizarrely fretful Luthor on every spectrum his sight could perceive. Then he listened…

"It has a heartbeat," he noted. Then he sniffed. "And it perspires." He turned his head to the side, listening intently. "There were four staff hired from the hotel, but there are five heartbeats in the rooms beyond. You stay with him, I'll search them out."

Batman grunted and, while Superman left, he watched Luthor's eyes as they followed him out the door. There didn't seem to be any actual recognition of his enemy, there didn't seem to be anything beyond an animal instinct tracking movement and color. Batman stepped cautiously forward, and Luthor squatted lower and more fiercely around his treasures.

Batman stopped and squatted himself in order to seem less threatening, and also to meet Luthor's eyes on the level. What he saw there made Joker look sane.

"Alexander, do you know where you are?" he asked sharply.

"P- P-" he whispered, as if his mouth couldn't quite remember how to make words.

"Power," Batman said with disgust.

"Unlimt… limited… unlimted…" Luthor assured him, offering up one of the items he guarded. Batman could see it was a book of brownish-gray, wrinkled paper bound in a neat but primitive fashion with thin silken twine. The cover was marked with ambiguous Asian lettering that Batman couldn't quite identify as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. He reached out to take the book, but Luthor pulled it back greedily.

"must… find… again…" he said manically. "must see it once more…. Power… Such power…"

* * *

Selina wandered into the bar of the whatever-berg Lounge and was relieved to find the empty quiet that meant it was still morning or early afternoon and they were not yet open for business. She saw Harley Quinn in Sly's usual position behind the bar, counting glasses from the look of it.

"Hiya Catty," she chirped happily when she saw Selina. "Vine Virtuosos soothe away that hangover for ya?"

"Um, the plants were very attentive," Selina answered guardedly.

"That's good. They were so good to me when I was, y'know, in mourning. I wound up back there so many nights. Sniff. Poor Mistah J."

"Joker, um, was always so, um," Selina stumbled, feeling that hangover + saying nice things about Joker + not knowing what had actually happened to him was really too much of a conversational challenge for anyone, so she just gave a vaguely kind smile.

"Yeah," Harley nodded, taking it as heartfelt sympathy. "There'll never be another one like my Mistah J. Such a shame those DEMON guys cutting him up that way. We never did find his chin ya know. The left index finger and the ear finally showed up behind the dumpster out back, did I tell you that?"

"I'm sure I would have remembered if you had," Selina said diplomatically.

"Well anyway, bad weeds make good compost, like Red always says. You want a Green Gaia for your hangover?"

"Sure," Selina shrugged, uncertain if she wanted to drink anything served and sanctioned by Poison Ivy's bar, but feeling at this point any clue was a good one. She watched, fascinated, as Harley chattered with cheery indifference about Joker's murder. It seemed like it had happened the night of the Roxy-Ivy catfight, when TV crews from **_FAB!_** came to film Hugo's makeover and Oswald helped Joker attack his own bar in the mistaken belief that Sly and Greg Brady were taking over his operation. From the sounds of it, Ivy had never been dragged into the alley by Roxy Rocket. She was still inside when Joker and Penguin entered, and not about to be taken hostage by a half-drunk Oswald kwak-a-kwa Cobblepot, she'd let fly with the pheromones.

"I'll take over from here, Harley," a cool voice announced as faint whiffs of mandarin wafted from the hall leading to Oswald-Ivy's office. "Catty and I are overdue for a chat," she added.

"Sure Red," Harley squeaked gleefully. She left, saying something about inventory in the basement. Selina couldn't help but notice that, as she passed Poison Ivy, Harley's finger danced playfully down her friend's arm and the leaves on Ivy's costume fluttered excitedly. Ivy turned her head completely to watch Harley go, blew a kiss to the back of her head, and then waited a full second after Harley had disappeared down the hall before she turned back to Selina and took her place behind the bar.

"Don't let her go on about it," Ivy instructed, picking up an orange and patting it affectionately before expertly zesting its peel into the mixture Harley had prepared. "She doesn't realize, poor dear, the role she played in…" she smiled wickedly, holding a sharp knife over the orange. "…what happened," she concluded, chopping the orange savagely in two with a single, vicious stroke. She squeezed the orange into a little pot of rosewater, and heated it while she went on.

"She simply can't handle it, that's why they kept her so medicated at Arkham… And we certainly don't want her going back there, now do we, Catty."

"I had no idea," Selina answered truthfully.

Ivy poured the steaming rosewater over the herbs, making a deliciously fragrant tisane, and then pushed the cup towards Selina with an expression of kindly sympathy that was _definitely_ the product of an alternate reality.

"I know you have troubles of your own, Sweetie," she said gently. "Stop worrying about it. Bruce will come around. He asked you to move in in the first place, he gave you that gorgeous –oh reminds me." She reached into her leaves and pulled out the pink sapphire, then slid it across the bar to Selina. "Whatever idea Zatanna's put into his head – Yes, you mentioned Zatanna last night around martini number four when you asked me to hold onto the ring – and whatever's going on there with Zatanna, he will come around and ask you to come back. Now drink your tisane."

"Look Pam," Selina hedged, "Whatever I may or may not have said about Bruce, or especially about Zatanna, I really don't think—"

"Catty, it's not nice to argue with Mother Nature. If I wasn't so sure Bruce would come around on his own, I'd _green_ him for you. I'm that sure you two belong together and as for Zatanna, whatever that magical misfit did, does, or will do, is completely irrelevant."

"You know we're talking about a pretty powerful magician?" Selina asked, getting sucked into the bizarre novelty of the situation: an enlightening conversation with Pamela Isley, rational being.

"Selina listen to me," Gaia's spokesmodel declared firmly, "The most powerful universal force is not the same as the most powerful force locally. Gravity is such a big deal out in the cosmos, but here and now…" she reached out and took Selina's hand, which felt strangely warm, as did the spicy scents that leapt from the steaming tisane into Selina's nostrils. "…_Biology_ wins every time."

Selina withdrew her hand in a fog, and Ivy casually redirected her attention to the bar, picking up a cloth and polishing just as Sly always did in sympathetic-bartender-mode.

"You can train a vine but not a cactus, Catty, it's that simple. I can green your splendidly rich and scrumptiously handsome Bruce Wayne, I've done it. I can green you too… but only short-term and never together, because damnit, Selina, you two work on each other more powerfully than anything else ever will. That's why I say: powerful magician or no, Zatanna is immaterial. There's something between you and Wayne that outranks anything else that comes into the vicinity."

"Say that again," Selina said sharply, her mind turning over the words.

"You can train a vine but not a cactus?"

"Not that, the end," Selina murmured thoughtfully. It seemed like Ivy had said something awfully important right there, a feeling Selina was reasonably sure had nothing to do with the tisane or the pheromones flying through the air.

"…of course, I wasn't exactly overjoyed at the discovery at first, I'd certainly prefer to have the billion dollar boytoy myself, not to mention the beautiful gardens out at that manor. How do you say it, 'Meow on a stick'? But then I thought hey, it's Nature's decree, and if _Nature_ is the final authority that even I can't trump, then _I win! _Although unfortunately the winning in that particular case means you get Wayne, but in terms of the big picture, I win. Nature is what it is, and nothing may touch it."

"Pamela," Selina smiled with sudden inspiration, "On behalf of the universe, I just want to say: _Right Answer_. I'm not sure how I generally tip you, probably not well because, well frankly, you annoy me. But when Bruce and I get back together, and assuming there's still a world to plant them in, the Wayne Foundation will plant some trees."

"How… nice," Ivy said, pleased but confused by what sounded like a compliment inside an insult wrapped in a promise to plant trees.

"Pammy, out of curiosity – and I don't believe I'm about to word it this way – but let's say some would-be sorceress wasn't as wise as you, and—"

"And tried to meddle with you and Bruce?" Ivy interrupted shrewdly.

"Maybe not 'meddle' but more like the phrase you used earlier: inserted her powers into the 'vicinity' of whatever-it-is between me and Bruce?"

"The 'whatever-it-is'?" Ivy said skeptically, "There's a phrase we haven't heard for a few years, not since you got over that sorry fixation you had on Batman. This thing with Wayne must really have you thrown for a loop, Selina."

"See this is why you annoy me," Selina chided lightly. "Best guess, Ivy, speaking for Mother Nature, what do you think might happen?"

"My best guess?" she smiled. "Catty, You ever hear of a 19th century horticulturalist named Luther Burbank?"

Selina gave her an impatient glare.

"I must've been out sick that day," she said flatly.

"Possibly the only _man_ in history to talk sense about plants. He said that 'Nature's laws affirm instead of prohibit. If you violate her laws, you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, _and hangman_.'"

* * *

Luthor held out another object, and this time Batman merely leaned forward to look at it rather than reaching out to take it. It was a small, long tray that, like the book, seemed ambiguously Asian. It contained several jade cylinders, as if a pair of costly chopsticks had been broken into unequal pieces.

"What did you do with these things?" Batman demanded.

"S- s-supreme… limitless… INFINITE power!!" Luthor exclaimed, stepping backward in his agitation and kicking over a bowl of smoldering powder. A hot coal fell out, igniting Luthor's pantleg and then the carpet as it rolled across the floor. Batman acted quickly, springing forward and executing a quick neck-chop. Luthor crumpled over his coveted magic paraphernalia, and Batman angrily stamped out the fire. Then he methodically unfolded a plastic bag from his utility belt. He carefully bagged the book, then the tray and the jade cylinders. The hot incense he sprayed with a neutralizing coolant before shaking it into a clear plastic vial. Then he sprayed the urn and bagged it as well.

"You took long enough," he growled without turning towards the door.

"I ran someone to the hospital," Superman explained. "That fifth heartbeat was Albert Desmond, Dr. Alchemy. He's catatonic. Has been for a few days, judging by the dehydration."

"And the staff did nothing?"

"They're terrified. They're not permitted to enter this part of the house unless they're called. They admitted Desmond four days ago, served dinner that night, maid cleaned the guest room next day, served breakfast –and that's it. That's the last they saw or heard of either Desmond or Luthor."

"Since the start of the crisis," Batman said soberly. "We'll show these items to Jason Blood to confirm it, but he's going to tell us they'd be used for something called a 'seeing.' The same kind of ritual Jason and Selina were conducting in Wayne Manor, at exactly the same time. If they had that door open when the spark ignited, it must have fed back somehow, fried something in Desmond's psyche, whatever part of him controlled the magic."

Superman looked skeptical. "And Luthor?"

"Saw real power. The most power-mad individual who ever lived saw real power beyond anything he ever imagined. Maybe he actually touched it for a fraction of a second. Whatever happened to him, he couldn't handle it. He's been here for days madly trying to get back in."

"So what do we do with him?"

"He's not wanted by US agencies or Interpol, and unfortunately nothing he's done here is illegal… But right now he's psychotic: sleep deprivation plus psychic shock and something of an addict-withdrawal response. Star Labs has facilities throughout the world, the medical facility in Greece is closest. Take him there, let him sleep, 'detox,' and when this is over – assuming that he, Star Labs, Greece, and Planet Earth still exist – we'll see if he's lucid enough to try and free himself. If he is, he'll have to reveal some of those bank accounts he's got hidden since LexCorp went under, that should lead to a warrant or two."

* * *

Selina knocked heatedly at the door to Wayne Manor and held her breath as the door swung open. One look at Alfred's face confirmed all Ivy had hinted about the situation with her and Bruce.

"Very pleasant to see you again, Miss," the butler said politely. "I hope Miss Nutmeg enjoyed the cakes I sent over."

"I'm sure she did, Alfred. I need to talk to Bruce. I need to talk to him right now."

"Miss Selina, no one is more eager than I for this _circumstance _with respect to yourself and Master Bruce to be finally resolved, that we might achieve a quick and complete return to the arrangement which brought you both such contentment. But for the time being, Miss, I really see no alternative but for you to give him the time and space he requested, so he may fully and dispassionately investigate this matter without… Miss Selina, please, you see how it is."

"Alfred, we both know I can break in or I can track him down on patrol. I'll do either if I have to; it is that important. Don't make me go to those lengths, I _really_ don't want this to become a 'Catwoman' thing."

"The master's orders were very explicit, Miss."

"What's he going to do, fire you?" she asked with a naughty grin.

"Well…" Alfred hedged, creeping the door open an inch wider, but blocking the entrance just as firmly as before.

"His orders were very explicit when he said he didn't want that sandwich you're going to bring him in about ten minutes," she added, checking her watch.

"That is quite true, Miss," Alfred admitted, allowing the door to open another inch.

"We both love him, Alfred. We both want him to be happy," she went on, the door opening another silent inch with each phrase. "And we both know I'm the way that happens," she said coolly.

"Indeed Miss," Alfred relented, stepping back and to the side to let her pass. "He is downstairs."

"I knew that," Selina said quickly, heading for the clock. "He's in the cave, he's at his stalactite, and he's brooding like there's no tomorrow – which there might not be, and that's the part we're going to fix."

* * *

"I need to talk to Dr. Luthor," Selina said without introduction.

Batman spun out of the chair at his workstation, grabbing a batarang from his belt and readying a throw before he even processed the voice. He paused when he saw her, sighed, and replaced the batarang wearily into his belt. Then he took off the mask, set it on the desk and turned it to face away from them, as if its very presence prevented his speaking on personal matters.

"Selina, I told you, I need time. We both do. This… possibility. It complicates… everything that's happened between us. It—"

"TIME!" she interrupted, making a 'Timeout' gesture. "Did I _say_ I came to talk to you, or did I not say quite distinctly that needed to talk to Dr. Luthor?"

He stared, searchingly, for a long, long moment.

"You expect me to believe this isn't about us?"

"A-eh-actually," she stammered, "I'm not sure at this point. But if you mean 'us' in the sense of Cartier's rooftop and what goes on between the sheets? Then no, that's not why I came here tonight. Although since you brought it up, I will tell you that you're wrong about Zatanna's magic having anything to do with our getting together, and that if you don't believe me and try to peek into my past, using magic, with Dr. Luthor, it turns out you light a spark that annihilates all of existence. But believe it or not, that's not why I'm here. I'm here, Bruce, because you've got the world's leading string theorist on speeddial, and I've got a really important question to ask."

He hesitated, looking past her and, from the look of it, rethinking an earlier conversation. She guessed he didn't take the part about lighting a spark and annihilating the universe literally (and who would! Selina reminded herself that _she_ didn't quite accept that any of this was really happening, and she was the one who'd actually seen an alternate reality Hawkman bashing Batman with the grandfather clock every 43 minutes.)

As for this Bruce, that distant, haunted look had returned, and Selina guessed it was a painful conversation he was remembering, probably when he'd told her to leave the manor. She was about to try a different approach when she saw the cold detachment of the crimefighter snap into place, stamping out any emotional considerations.

"How did you _know_ about Luthor and the seeing?" he asked finally, the deep Bat-gravel sounding completely strained and artificial.

She sighed, patience waning.

"At this point, Bruce, I don't think there's any way to answer that in a way you're going to believe. Short answer: I know because you gave me a pink sapphire that night at the MOMA."

"That's not good enough."

Patience snapped.

"Okay, how about this," she offered, "You want your blessed space, give me what I want and I'll go. Place the call and I'm out of here; you can go back to being miserable."

"You're giving up? On us… on me?"

Selina felt a weird prickle she hadn't experienced in years, not since half-forgotten denials on long distant rooftops. He'd worked himself back into the old rock-and-hardplace, "can't, mustn't, want to anyway," where they'd spent so much of their adversarial relationship. It suggested a way to proceed: He would deny himself. Just like he always had. If he wanted her, it would be an unacceptable weakness he had to conquer. He would _deny_ himself, and to do that he'd give her whatever she wanted to make her go away. All she had to do was push those old buttons, make it necessary for him to get her and the temptation out of his field of vision… All she had to do was push those old buttons and make him want her… but it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable as it used to be.

Internally, Selina set her own feelings aside and let Catwoman's deliberately seductive drawl take over:

"Oh we don't like that, do we," she purred. "Maybe I should have tried that years ago, on all those rooftops, give you what you pretend you want instead of what we both know you're _aching_ for."

Selina felt an eerie chill as she saw Bruce Wayne's bare features undergo the same transformation she'd witnessed a hundred times framed by Batman's mask: jaw set, muscles tensed, slight sneer. The eyes that burned into hers were ablaze with anger, longing, and bewilderment. It made her shudder that she could still get that reaction so easily.

"You said this wasn't about us," he growled.

"I also said I'd go as soon as you patch me through to Dr. Luthor," she reminded him, ruthlessly coating her voice with unspeakable promises, then dropping the alluring manner in an instant and resuming a crisp businesslike expression.

He looked murderously angry. Then a strange calm settled in and he silently stepped aside and gestured to the keyboard at his workstation.

"Lewis or Laura?" he asked with controlled bat-focus.

"Ex-cuse me?"

"You said you wanted to talk to Dr. Luthor; which one, Lewis or Laura?"

"Lewis _OR_ Laura?" Selina gaped.

"Yes!" he said icily, "Lewis or Laura. You're so absurdly insistent you need to talk to a Dr. Luthor and you don't know which?"

"The string theorist you're working with, from the Foundation," Selina said defensively.

"Yes."

"There are _two_ of them?"

"The Doctors Laura and Lewis Luthor are both string theorists," Bruce replied like he was telling an idiot how to program a VCR. "They work together, they're brother and sister, they happen to be twins."

"Twins." Selina took a deep breath and looked to the heavens, represented for the moment by a furry brown bat stretching its wings outward and scratching the back of its head on Bruce's favorite stalactite. "Laura and Lewis Luthor, they're twins," she told it, then she turned back to Bruce and announced, "The Universe is having a great deal of fun at my expense right now, and when all this is over, somebody better make it up to me."

* * *

Selina sat, calm and poised, in the south drawing room and handed Lewis Luthor his cup of tea as gracefully as she had his sister. Neither Bruce nor Alfred were quite so at ease watching her act so naturally as hostess when she had moved out of the manor nearly two weeks before.

Selina, for her own part, had been terribly anxious about meeting a "Lex Luthor with hair" and "Lex Luthor as a woman" face to face. Now that they were here, now that she'd shaken their hands and talked to them like regular people, she was completely at ease.

"As I understand your research," Selina began, "Everything that exists, all forms of matter and energy, the protons and electrons inside an atom, the very particles that transmit energy, are all made up of these vibrating filaments called Strings?"

"Yes, that's correct," Lewis said with the pleased-but-tolerant air of an expert happy that a neophyte is interested but amused that they're stuck on page one.

"If I may ask what I'm sure is a very stupid question," Selina went on, "filaments of what?"

Lewis looked put out and glanced warily at her sister, who beamed.

"That is the million dollar question," Laura said enthusiastically.

"Laura don't," he begged. "Please do not do this in front of the man who has actually given us a million dollars." He turned back to Selina. "They're energy. Vibrating filaments of _energy_."

"That is the standard formula lecturers like my brother always use," Laura said smugly. "And then five minutes later they go on to say that energy and the particles that transmit energy are all made up of _Strings_, and they hope none of the students will catch them out."

"So which is it?" Selina asked.

"Energy is made of Strings," Lewis said acidly. "It's the way a particular grouping of Strings vibrate that determine if the whole is 'energy,' say gravity or a graviton, rather than matter… We don't actually know, that is, the theory doesn't attempt to describe what the Strings themselves might be comprised of. Everything mankind has ever conceived of is made of these Strings, so we don't have any terminology, or any concepts, for what they themselves might be."

"That's not entirely true," Laura said sweetly, smiling impishly at her brother.

"No. Laura do not do this, not in front of Mr. Wayne, please. He is a patron. His foundation has underwritten our research. This is Science, and those wild ideas of yours are not-"

"I wouldn't be adverse to hearing the wild idea," Bruce interjected.

Lewis held up his hands, as if distancing himself from the proceedings.

"The Strings are God," Laura pronounced.

"Oh COME ON!" Lewis exploded, unable to maintain the distance he'd declared only a moment before.

"I only say it that way to annoy him," his sister explained while Lewis declared firmly, "The Strings _are not God_."

"Agreed," Laura conceded. "But it shows how we do have words and ideas in the world outside of science, and we should be open to using them when, as scientists, we come upon something we've never conceived of. So no, Lewis, my beloved tightass brother, I'm not going to get us banished from the Institute by saying the Strings are God. But they're something very close. You said we don't have terminology for what the Strings are, but we _do_. Science may not, but human beings most definitely do."

"Laura this isn't science!"

"We were all _people_ before we became _scientists_, Lewis."

"I like the way you two fight," Selina observed.

Laura turned to her and winked, then became serious. "Strings are _everywhere_, they're every_thing_, they're every_one_. They are a fundamental part of every aspect of creation, the parts that we've figured out, the parts we've only begun to discover, and the parts we haven't even found yet. I believe that Strings are the primal godforce, the great unifying power of creation. I believe…" she paused, "that the Strings are Love."

No one, even Lewis, spoke for a long moment. Then he eyed his sister and cleared his throat.

"My brother is right, it's not science," she went on. "It's…meta-science in the most literal sense of the word _meta_, meaning 'after.' Meta-science is what we talk about among ourselves in the faculty lounge after class, and in the think tanks after the formal meetings, only at the very top where we're open to the…" She paused and shot a look at her brother "…the impossibly wild and preposterous idea, like maybe the earth orbits around the sun and not the other way around. I'll be honest, Mr. Wayne, 'What the strings are' isn't science; it's a kind of science-cum-philosophy. There's no real physics here, no mathematical formula we could use to predict an outcome of, say, tampering with a String's essence in a particular way, based on this premise, and then conducting an experiment to see if the result fit our calculations."

"Leaving the math out of it," Selina asked gingerly, "what's your best guess? Your theories acknowledge that magic exists. Your theories say that magic is a way of changing how Strings vibrate. What if it went further and tried to mess with what the Strings actually _are_?"

Lewis looked at Laura, who looked at Lewis, then back at Selina.

"Your girlfriend has a strangely thorough knowledge of our research, Mr. Wayne," Lewis noted, turning to Bruce who wasn't paying a bit of attention but staring at Selina with a hard, distant expression.

Selina looked to Laura, "Your brother's stalling for time, isn't he? You haven't got an answer?"

"I wouldn't know how to guess," she admitted.

"What if I said there's a legend among magic users," Selina went on, looking now at Bruce, "that they crossed a line once. They evolved an unacceptable form of magic, and the Universe stepped in and burned it right out of existence." She paused, willing Bruce to say something, but he only went on staring with bat-intensity, "What if I said that some people believe it's happening again… a magician inserted her powers into the vicinity of a genuine and naturally occurring love, would… would an 'immune response' be in the realm of possibility?"

"Could I speak to you in private," Bruce demanded.

Selina got up and walked quietly into the hallway as Laura and Lewis huddled together, arguing in hushed tones.

"What do you think you're doing?" Bruce hissed angrily.

Selina felt a strange chill. This wasn't her Bruce and technically wasn't her problem. But he had gone farther down that road than any other Bruce Wayne she had encountered, he'd gone so far that he'd sent her away. The first of these pink sapphire Bruces said "If it's not your choice to be with me, then I'd no right to touch you." And that's exactly what he was preparing himself for: learning he had no right to touch her, realizing he'd have to change her _back_ and losing all that they'd built together… This wasn't her Bruce, and technically he wasn't her problem – but there was simply no way she was going to leave him in this needless, self-imposed hell. Maybe it had no purpose as far as snuffing out the spark or saving the universe, but she wasn't going to leave any Bruce so like her own in that kind of pain if she could help it.

"Listen to me," she said, softly emphatic, "We're good. Zatanna's magic did not make us happen, and Zatanna's magic did not change me. But she _tried_. Bruce, some Zatanna, somewhere, tried. And that's why we are looking at a cosmic crisis across multiple, maybe infinite, realities if you go ahead with the seeing ritual that you're planning. I was never like Dr. Light, Bruce. I was never like the Top. I never hung out with Luthor or Grodd; I never killed anybody, constructed deathtraps to kill anybody or… sacrificed black puppies to Satan, whatever the hell those guys do on Saturday night. I certainly never had the slightest interest in taking over the world; I don't even like hiring groundskeepers for the Catitat. The Joker-Ra's-Luthor thing isn't me, and you know it. It was NEVER me, and maybe 9/10th of the reason is what should be obvious to anybody who's known me for ten blessed minutes: _I'm not evil_… But there is that one other tiny, insignificant, trifling consideration… that I fell for one of the good guys. From day one there's been something there, Bruce. And if the tiniest part of the reason I was never really one of _them_ is because I love _you_, and if Zatanna tried to magically alter the Strings in the vicinity of my criminal activities and got in the way of that… the Universe decides enough is enough. Game over. This cost-free magic from talking-backwards girl is a malignancy that has _got to go. _

"You start getting ideas and rounding up Luthors in multiple dimensions for Seeing Rituals until you actually _turned off a String_ – and that lights a spark that bursts into flame and burns up the magic Zatara built… Which would certainly be fine with me except, minor problem, it's going to take everything else with it."

"That's a preposterous theory."

"Your big throwdown with Azrael, did he fire shuriken into the Turner in the dining room?"

"…Yes…"

"Did he booby trap the clock entrance with poison darts?"

"Yes."

"…Did Clark mention the protocols when he talked to you about the mindwipe?"

"Yes he did. Selina—"

"If we had a kid, would Clark and Lois be godparents?"

"Multiple dimensions, Bruce. Multiple Luthors, Seeing Rituals, shutting off a string, cosmic spark, smoldering, and when it bursts into flame, we're all gone."

"If what you're saying is true, and Selina I have to say I have my doubts, but _if_ it's true…"

"You're the best strategic thinker we've got, Bruce, in any dimension. You've got plans, you've got back up plans, you've got so many plans I'm surprised they don't explode out your ears when you blow your nose. And you're the scientist, and you're the crimefighter. You're the one who's railed against magic from day one because it'll bend natural laws—"

"_Break_ natural law," he corrected.

"Always the crimefighter," she smiled affectionately. "So you tell me, Dark Knight, if this is all happening because Zatanna pulled a Berliani, fucked with the strings in a way they won't be fucked with, broke natural law you don't get to break and set off this immune response, all these seeing rituals to burn away the infection, then _what do we do to stop it?_"

* * *

The trio had reassembled in the Batcave, and Jason Blood looked disapprovingly over the magic paraphernalia Batman and Superman had taken from Lex Luthor.

"Dr. Alchemy was a chemist, I believe, before embarking on magickal practice?" he asked sourly.

Superman nodded. "He began as Mr. Element, used his knowledge of chemistry to facilitate his crimes and escapes. Until he got caught and discovered his cellmate's 'good luck charm' was the famous Philosopher's Stone—"

Jason grimaced. "It was _not_ the Philosopher's Stone," he said archly. "There are many rocks and gems with magical properties, the Philosopher's Stone is merely the one that became known in the mainstream world outside the true mystic community. As an outsider, this Albert Desmond made the same assumption all non-mystics make, that he commanded the one, celebrated magical relic… It's not important, really, simply an amusing conceit, and explains a good deal about this hodgepodge." He gestured dismissively to the collection.

"More amateurs dabbling with forces they have no experience with," Batman growled savagely.

"As opposed to what you did?" Superman said archly.

"Regardless of what may have occurred in other dimensions," Batman replied coldly, "I commissioned a _scientist_ to conduct _scientific _research, and when it came to the supernatural we went to Jason Blood, who nobody can call amateur or inexperienced."

Superman looked apologetically at Jason, who coughed as if he was merely waiting for the pair of them to return their attention to the artifacts.

"The book is water-damaged," he said as if he had never been interrupted. "And the writing is worn and obscured in several passages, but it appears to be the genealogy of a family making sake in Kyushu for 53 generations. It contains no magic or magical knowledge whatsoever."

"None at all?" Superman asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Polishing grains of rice to use only the purest starch elements in the exquisite Daiginjo sakes may have been a closely guarded family secret, Superman, but there's nothing remotely mystical about it."

"And the rest?" Batman asked flatly.

"They evidently used fire rather than water for their seeing, burning a volatile temple incense in this urn. A bit old-fashioned, but a functional method for seeing through time, space, or illusion. These jade rods, however…" He trailed off and made a helpless gesture. "These are yagi batons, they function as a kind of antenna to draw magical energies from many sources into a specific point. And, judging by the ash on the tip of this long one, this Dr. Alchemy and Luthor were using it as a poker to prod the fire."

Batman glared, Superman glared, and Jason sensed he was about to become the target of another duet of disapproval— when the vortex suddenly surged upward like a geyser bathing the Batcave in a rich purple glow, which then spun bluer as the radius shrunk around the transporter, it slowed and collapsed into a smaller green funnel of light, then yellow, and finally a thin pillar of white which faded to reveal Catwoman standing again in the central chamber.

She stepped out looking happier and more contented than she had since before the whole crisis began. Her eyes scanned the cave briefly until they located Batman, and then she walked up to him, without acknowledging Jason or Superman, and kissed his cheek tenderly.

"You're wonderful," she declared with a bright smile – and then turned to Superman, (who she'd evidently noticed afterall) and reaffirmed "He's wonderful." Then she turned to Jason while her arm snaked around Batman's waist for an emphatic sideways hug as she repeated, "Isn't he wonderful!"

"I think we can assume this one went better than the last," Batman grumbled, maneuvering brusquely out of her embrace.

"World's greatest detective," Selina teased, pulling off her cowl. "You did it, you came up with the answer. We can all go on living and I don't have to hop through any more dimensions with Luthors and cocaine and Poison Ivys that make sense."

"I did?" Batman asked skeptically.

"Maybe not you-you, but close enough," she said enthusiastically. "I told him the whole thing in this last world, all of it, the theories, anomalies in the house, dead ends, alternate realities I've seen first hand and the ones Batman in that other world told me about…" she paused, panting, as if she'd just run a race. "…And you had the answser!"

"Well?" he asked impatiently.

"You said that Albert Einstein said 'We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.' Right?"

"Yes," he nodded warily. "_We_ didn't exactly create this."

"Actually I think 'we' did," Selina laughed happily. Then she turned to Superman and Jason. "Could you guys give us a minute," she asked, pointing sweetly towards the trophy room. The two men looked at each other and shuffled awkwardly into that distant corner of the cave. When they'd gone, Selina turned back to Batman.

"I love you, Bruce. That's a law of the universe that nobody gets to mess with, and if you bring magic irritants into the vicinity, it makes the universe _itchy_ and the universe will _scratch_." She flared her claws and broke into the naughty grin. "Which I can't say I disapprove of, scratching the mojo right out of that t-n-u-c was my first thought and I still think it's a good one."

He stared for a moment. "Are you drunk?" he asked testily.

Selina's playfully naughty manner faded, and she continued seriously.

"We can't solve this crisis using the same thinking that created it. It's an immune response, I'm certain of that now. I've been running around through time and space trying to _stop_ white blood cells from fighting off _an infection_. What we need to do is help, not work against it, wipe out the infection so the white blood cells don't have to."

"The infection being magic?"

"The infection being Zatanna's particular brand of cost-free magic, yes." She smiled broadly. "Magic so disconnected from the powers being used that she could honk off the strings without even knowing it. Which is definitely not my problem or yours! You… _We_… may have started this, in a sense, because you don't get to mess with what we have, and that's what she got in the way of. And according to Einstein, that's exactly why it's not our job to fix it."

"That's not what the quote means," he said grimly.

"I know… but c'mon, Bruce, you're not a magic-user, you're as far away from that world as you can get – even in an alternate reality where you'd beaten Zatanna's magic out of her and used it yourself, you still hated it and you still didn't trust it. Don't you see, this isn't our problem anymore. It's up to… Jason or Hella or… I don't know, Etrigan, whoever is powerful enough to swipe another magician's hoodoo."

He looked at her sadly.

"Is this what your hero-Batman in the alternate reality told you? That it's not your responsibility to go hopping through dimensions?"

Her face fell as realization dawned.

"You think he just said it to get rid of me?"

"I think the idea of stopping 'the infection' of Zatanna's magic has merit. But once Superman – who is listening, by the way – relates this conversation to Jason, I suspect he's going to tell you that no wizard, shaman or sorcerer is going to be able to strip Zatanna of her powers with a spell. If it were that simple, magic-users would have wiped themselves out generations ago… You're the thief, Selina. If we have to _steal_ Zatanna's powers in order to end this crisis, then you're not finished with the dimensional travel yet."

* * *

…to be continued…


	9. 43 minutes

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 9: 43 minutes_

* * *

Bruce Wayne watched the woman who had been his lover for years, his enemy for years before that, and his obsession since the moment he'd set eyes on her, the woman who shared his home and his bed and his secrets… He watched her like a bug under a magnifying glass.

Yes, Selina was Catwoman. Yes, Catwoman was a thief. And yes, he himself had said a thief's mentality is what was needed if they were going to, essentially, 'steal' Zatanna's powers. But he hadn't really meant, that is he never anticipated, nobody could have anticipated— this was just nuts. He always said that criminal behavior was inherently irrational, but even he never envisioned… this _couldn't_ be how one went about planning a crime… could it?

She'd gone to the kitchen and piled a plate high with slices of leftover turkey and ham. Then she'd gone to the morning room and sat there for the better part of an hour – snacking! She sat at the desk, his mother's desk, with this curious look on her face. And after a minute or two she'd pick up a piece of turkey and nibble. Then she'd set down the turkey and look into space again. Every once in a while she'd turn her head to the side, like a cat listening. Once or twice she held up a finger and twiddled it in the air like she was writing a math problem on an imaginary chalkboard. She never wrote anything down, she never got up from the chair to walk through a maneuver, take a measurement, or look up a fact.

"This must be killing you," Clark laughed as he watched Bruce watch a monitor with the security feed from the morning room. "You finally get to watch and analyze the criminal mind at work, and it's her, and she's sitting at your desk eating chicken."

"It's my mother's desk," Bruce corrected. "And it's turkey. Alfred made it before he left."

"Ah," Clark nodded, biting back additional laughter.

"What now?" Bruce grunted, ignoring Clark's obvious mirth. "She's moved on to bonbons?"

Clark scrutinized the screen. "Butter creams," he said mildly, delighted he could correct Bruce's detail just as his friend had done a moment before.

Bruce glared. "It was a rhetorical question," he declared flatly, and then went on in a controlled, almost bored tone. "May I remind you this is a crisis situation. Your levity is hardly—"

"What do you want from me, Bruce? Glowering at the screen isn't going to make this go any faster."

"Neither will laughing at it. I'm going up there and talk to her."

Superman held his tongue until Bruce had left the cave. Then he saw Selina start as if she had an idea and happily bite into a raspberry cream.

"Yes, talk to her," he said finally though there was no one to hear. "That's sure to speed things along."

* * *

On his way to the morning room, Bruce passed the chimera of his ancestors Sarah and Marie Wayne, easily recognized from their portraits in the gallery above the Great Hall. They were sisters, and although the apparition made no sound, he could tell by their manner that they were giggling in a silly girlish fashion.

"Impossible women," Bruce grumbled to himself.

"I hope you've got something," he announced reaching the morning room. "The temporal distortion in the anomalies is getting worse."

"You mean the ones in the 18th century getups?" Selina noted. "I saw them. I think the tall blonde is getting married."

"She's not," Bruce said crisply. "Her young man is killed in the Battle of Trenton. She dies an old maid. It's the shorter one, the brunette, that married. You making any progress or not."

Selina sighed. "Yes and no. The way I see it, Zatanna's magic is like a beautiful necklace, goodsize canary diamonds surrounded by little white ones – worth a fortune but you'd never sell it because it's just too meow – perfect prize for kitty, get the picture? But it's locked in a really, _really_ good vault." She paused and took a bite of chocolate, then resumed while carefully chewing. "Maybe I can find a way in; maybe not. But if I can, it's gonna take a while to figure out and a really long time to prep the job– time I haven't got because this is Gotham and Batman is infuriatingly good at this. And no happy grunt from you, Jackass."

She paused again and popped the rest of the chocolate into her mouth.

"Badass crimefighter isn't who you want to be rooting for this time around because in this case you're a crisis spark and we're all gonna die if this thing drags out too long. So, what do we do?"

She paused a third time, but rather than take another chocolate, she set down the box and simply smiled up at him – a coy, confident cat-smile.

"Glad you asked," she said brightly. "Here's the kicker: Nobody has an exquisite chocker with the most perfect and beautiful canary diamonds ever cut just to keep it locked away in a vault. We don't have to hit the vault if we can hit _the party _she's going to wear it to." She pointed triumphantly towards the study. "And everybody wears their best jewels when they come to Wayne Manor."

Bruce massaged his eyebrow wearily. "I hate this analogy," he murmured.

"Every 43 minutes, there she is. It's just like hitting a party, Bruce, we know exactly where the necklace will be, we know exactly when: pink finhead alien, Hawkman-clock-uppercut, big red robot, Superman-whoosh, and Zatanna! Waving her necklace! When she does, we grab it."

Bruce fought down his revulsion at the waves of delight pulsing from Selina. She was thinking like a criminal and she was reveling in it. She was _glowing_, positively glowing. Her excitement was bad enough, but the 'we' made it infinitely worse. She was _including_ him: _we know exactly where she'll be… when she does, we grab it! _

"And how do you propose to 'grab' Zatanna's magic," he said finally, trying to keep the sternest growl of bat-disapproval out of his voice and failing even to his own ears.

In her enthusiasm, Selina didn't notice.

"How would I know; I'm no magician. Hey are you hungry? I could make us a couple sandwiches."

"YOU—" he blurted, then stopped short and continued in a strained but quieter tone. "You've been eating all morning."

She laughed. "I know. Plotting makes me hungry. Although…" she ran a finger excitedly down his arm and exhaled in a deeply suggestive snarl-purr "…might be better ways to feed the high right now."

Bruce pushed her away gruffly and turned away.

"You can't be serious," he spat in Batman's hoarsest gravel.

"Hey!" she objected angrily, "Is that all the catnip I get when I'm doing all this trying to keep the damn universe from unfraying, goddamn Luthors and pink sapphires every time I turn around and even alternate Alfred was ready to shut the door in my face?!"

Bruce turned, suddenly ashamed.

"I—" he said quietly. "I didn't realize— You seemed to be doing just fine for _catnip_. You seemed to be reveling in it. I thought that—"

"I like being back on solid ground," she said frankly. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing with cosmic sparks and Berliani monks. I know where I am with _this_. I'm good at it. And I like that I can help."

They stared directly into each other's eyes, frozen for a long moment. Then

"Let's go find Jason," he said brusquely. "See if he has any ideas how to 'grab the necklace' now that we know where and when…" he sighed as if it pained him to continue her analogy, "…it will be out of the vault."

* * *

Selina sat in the study, slumped into a mass of frustration, self-pity, and feline ire. Bruce had changed back into costume, and now Batman, Superman, Jason Blood, Hella, and Etrigan circled the room like a squadron of fighter planes on independent flight paths. She had done her part it seemed, and now they would formulate a plan. They would. The crimefighters, the demonologist, the demon, and the underworld goddess. When they spoke of Selina it was as a variable in an equation, and when they included her it was with a strained cheeriness, the way she called to Whiskers and Nutmeg before taking them to the vet… All except Batman. Batman didn't speak to her at all, he didn't look at her if he could help it, and when he referred to her his voice took on a cold detachment that sent chills up her spine.

"So it should work?" he asked marking off points on a floorplan of the room?

"It will work," Jason assured him. "Erasing Zatanna's powers from existence is what the simultaneous seeing rituals of at least three Bruce Wayne/Luthor teams was _meant_ to accomplish. In our world, our Lex Luthor pulled those magicks off course. Possibly he was destined to engage in a seeing at the same time as his counterparts were, just as you were destined to summon Dr. Leiverman and hold a ritual here at the manor at the same time as your counterparts. Perhaps all Bruce Waynes and Luthors were led in this direction by the Universe until the desired effect was achieved. But predestined or not, influenced or not, our Luthor became convinced that this Dr. Light business was his ticket back to power. He could show the world that metas and aliens were the threat he's always maintained. He staged a seeing of his own with Dr. Alchemy, intent on proving there was magic at play in that botched attempt to assassinate Clark Kent and all that followed which led to his removal from office."

Jason paused and held up the longest of the jade cylinders confiscated from Luthor.

"And because Albert Desmond is a scientist at heart and not a classically trained wizard, he never recognized this as a yagi baton. He inserted it _into_ the seeing fire, pulling the lines of magick from the Wayne seeings out of alignment, bringing them to converge on the wrong string, silencing the wrong one(s), probably at random, and setting off this cosmic instability.

"So yes, Bruce, it _will_ work. If Selina can go back and persuade those Bruce Waynes to do what the universe intended in the first place, for them to use magic simultaneously to converge on Zatanna's powers and zero them out, I see no reason why it shouldn't work."

"How do we know the magic wouldn't be pulled off course all over again?" Superman asked.

Again Jason held up the jade cylinder. "The yagi baton is like an antenna, magnet, and lightning rod all in one. It will _draw_ magicks into itself across spectra you can't even conceive of with a magnetism that transcends the forces of magick itself. We know where each of these Bruce Waynes will be conducting their ritual, they'll be at that claw-footed table," he pointed. "And we know the precise spot where Zatanna's magic will manifest at one exact moment." He pointed the baton at the spot where she appeared every 43 minutes in the anomaly to freeze Despero and waken the mind-controlled leaguers.

"That's only one of infinite Zatannas," Batman pointed out.

Jason shook his head briskly, obviously anticipating the question.

"It won't matter. Wayne Manor is currently a nexus connected to all dimensions; that is why Selina is able to see the cats that link her to this reality whenever she crosses into another. Magick cast _ here_ in this place, _ now_ at this time, is able to transcend dimensions and enter into all realities. If Zatanna is hit with a nullifying counterwave while in this house and already in a state of 'dimensional leakage' if you will, I have no doubt it will pass through to all dimensions. It's likely that is why, of all the dimensional anomalies, it is _this particular scene_ which keeps repeating. The seeing rituals took place right there at that table, and in all the infinite realities, _that one moment brought Zatanna's magic closest to the forces meant to dissolve it._"

"I hate this," Selina announced to no one in particular.

* * *

Jason Blood reluctantly poured the scented oil out of the little dish suspended by the trio of gold cats. He replaced the dish over the flame, and Batman just as reluctantly set a countdown clock inside it.

"You'll have 43 minutes," he said coldly to Catwoman.

"Yeah I got that part down," she noted calmly.

Jason poured the oil from the black cats and cast a glowing _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå _around the jade batons, then lowered the magic bubble until it came to rest in the glass dish over that second burner.

"Remember, one of the yagi batons for each Bruce Wayne," he said blandly, "and one for you in that final step."

"I got that part down too," she hissed hatefully.

Jason poured the oil from the third set of cats, and placed the ball of webbed purple glass called a "witch orb" inside of it.

"Then there's nothing left to be said," he remarked flatly. "The sooner it's done, the sooner this menace is behind us and we can all proceed with our lives."

Catwoman nodded and stepped into the transporter. The churning whirlpool of energy beneath it surged as it usually did when she entered the chamber, and Batman took his place at the controls.

"Wait," he blurted suddenly. He stepped back from the console and jerked his head once, sharply, to the side.

Squelching a smile, Catwoman stepped patiently out of the transporter and walked calmly to the side where he indicated. There, he touched her arm and pulled her farther from Jason and the transporter. When they were what he presumably judged was a safe distance, Selina waited calmly and at last he spoke.

"If it gets, if you," he began haltingly. "Selina, if you get there and it's too dangerous— There's a lot of power in that room. If you don't think you can do it… then don't. We can find another way."

"You're really very sweet when you're overprotective," she interrupted, smiling. "But there isn't another way. If there was, that's what we'd be doing. _I'd_ insist on it. Think about it, Bruce, if there was any alternative, and I mean _any_ alternative—"

KREEEEEE sounded ominously from the study, echoing down the path from the clock passage, and Selina closed her eyes at the unwanted but inevitable cue to leave. Batman's thumb clicked a button automatically, and the clock in the oil burner began counting down.

"43 minutes," she whispered.

…42: 58…

"You don't have to be the one to go," Batman insisted.

…42: 56…

"Of course I do…"

…42: 54…

"…because you can't say no to me."

* * *

The vortex grew and receded, just as before, and as always Selina's first move was to check her hand for a sapphire. It was gone – but Batman, some Batman, was still there in the cave. He was squatting before the glowing _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå_ and looked up at her sharply.

"This is your doing?" he growled suspiciously. "Your 'dimension hopping' is using magic?"

"Strictly speaking, it's Jason Blood's doing. But yes, that magic bubble is here for me," she answered. "Are you… You're the Batman I met once before?" she asked gently. "The one who'd been to alternate timelines because of that trio from the 31st Century? The one I showed where the burners were—"

"These were the black cats," he pointed, "The white you said were there, and the gold there. You 'left' and then suddenly this glowing ball appeared right over where you said the burner with black cats was located. And now you're back?"

She nodded.

"I'm back. And I've come to ask something more, something you're really not going to like."

"Will it prevent this annihilation of realities you're trying to stop?"

"We think so."

"Then let's not worry about what I'll 'like.'"

She swallowed and nodded again, psyching herself up.

"Jason says Wayne Manor and this cave are connected to all other dimensions and realities. He says that magic cast in this house will carry through to all others, that's how the vortex that brought me here works, and that's why you can see the magic bubble full of pixie sticks."

"Go on," he said, voice deep with loathing.

"I told you you wouldn't like it," she reminded him. "I know you hate magic. I can't imagine how much you hate having it in the house and in the cave. Believe it or not, it gets worse."

"Go on," he repeated, the revulsion growing angrier.

"Right now, the manor and cave are connected to all other worlds – and in one of those worlds, you told me you commanded Zatanna's magic."

"You would remember that part," he growled.

"I need you to aim it at the glowing ball of jade batons and say '_egrahc dna sucof._'"

"YOU WANT ME TO CHARGE A MAGIC WAND FOR YOU!" he exploded, waves of hell month fury pouring off him.

Selina fought down the urge to panic and forced the appearance of patient calm as he closed in with a fiery menace she'd never felt from her own Batman.

"I don't know what you believe as far as God or destiny or the universe having a plan," she said quietly, "but this could be the _reason_ you went through that whole ordeal with the alternate timelines. We _have_ to shut off Zatanna's powers, Bruce. And you, in _this place_ at _this time_, can access Zatanna's powers. These are magic antennae, basically. If you tune them for us, tune them to her magic, then we can zero them out just like a sound wave."

"And I've only your word that this is a good thing," he snapped, turning his back on her.

"Yes. Just my word. Maybe if you were closer to your Catwoman that would be worth more."

He turned back and studied her intently. Just like their first meeting, she noticed the gears turning as she'd seen a hundred times in her world, but with a different intensity here, a suspicious urgency that seemed to define this Batman.

"He told you about Clark," he said quietly.

"If we had a child, Clark and Lois would be godparents," she added, just as quietly.

His lips parted slightly – what would have been a full jaw-drop in another man – whatever he'd expected her to say, it wasn't that. Another long moment passed and then his head dipped in a barely perceptible nod. Selina guessed that he'd made a decision… but then a second passed, then two, then three, and still he said nothing. She was beginning to fear the answer was no, when he glanced towards the batons and then back at her.

"I don't even know if I can do it here," he said finally.

"We've got nothing to lose by trying," she ventured with a half-smile.

He glared hatefully at the glowing ball hovering a few inches off the floor, and Selina watched his eyes darken as the memory of that other life asserted itself.

"_egrahc dna sucof," _he pronounced in a strangely commanding voice, then his whole manner deflated and he looked at her with tired, dead eyes. "Now go."

"I'm sorry," she said simply.

"Go."

"Could I kiss your cheek first?"

"No."

"I don't think I'll be able to come back when this is over… I want to thank you."

"No one ever does, do they?"

"Bruce… find your cat. Please. Don't let it end like this."

"…You're welcome… Now go."

…36: 20…

* * *

The vortex subsided, and Selina saw she was wearing the first alternate-sapphire, the one with a single baguette on each side instead of three, the one where at first she hadn't noticed the difference. That meant the Batman she saw suspending himself in an iron cross in the gymnasium across the cave was the first Bruce Wayne she'd encountered, the one she'd found in the study poring over his book of runes, a Bruce so similar to her own that she could glide up to him with the naughtiest of grins while his muscles strained to support his bodyweight without a tremor.

"Don't mind me," she teased, running a finger down his abs, "I don't want to interrupt the workout."

"AARRRHHHHLLL" he growled as he pulled his body up out of her reach —and into a momentary handstand —before leaping off the rings into a backflip —and landing defiantly behind her.

"Don't do that," he graveled in the deep baritone of a crimefighter who had his workout interrupted against his will, but didn't really mind.

She turned with a pleasant smile.

"Say Handsome, remember when I talked you out of the whole seeing ritual to peek into my past because it's really not necessary?"

"Yes," he answered guardedly.

"Turns out it is necessary," she announced with that lightly defiant rooftop manner when she'd just burgled an art gallery and wasn't about to deny, equivocate, or apologize for it. "You have to do it in the study with Dr. Luthor, just like you originally planned, but you should point this at the ceiling."

She handed him one of the jade batons matter-of-factly and then waited with calm and cheerful resolve for the monsoon of bat-disapproval.

"What happened to all your guarantees and assurances? Selina! You _convinced_ me. I believed— I thought that- I've never been so relieved in my life and now—"

"Easy big fella," she jumped in hurriedly. "This isn't because I've had any second thoughts about what we talked about. Everything I told you stands. I know and now you know why Zatanna _couldn't_ have had a thing to do with my decision to stop stealing. This is about her now, not me. It's necessary that you and Dr. Luthor perform that seeing exactly as you originally planned."

"Do I get a reason for this- unusual request?" he asked, with an almost playful lightness that meant he was willing to do it. It seemed odd, but she remembered that this Bruce had been so calmed and so relieved once they'd talked it out. It felt like those first days after he'd taken off the mask, this weight of doubt and distrust had been lifted and in its place came this giddy, loving openness, that sweet honey warmth she'd felt looking into the Water of Avalon right before the spark…

She sighed, uncertain how to answer him.

"Is it okay if we let that be my secret for now?" she asked, in the astonishing position of matching _Bruce's_ lighthearted trust with a carefree hope _she_ didn't quite feel.

"Sure, Kitten. You'll tell me when you're ready."

…29: 50…

* * *

Selina regarded the ring's central pink stone suspiciously. It was the smallest gem to grace her finger in all these dimensional variations, the one which was not a sapphire but a diamond, the one that was an engagement ring not an "I may never be capable of that kind of vulnerability" ring.

In a strange way, Selina found it harder dealing with this Batman than any other, even the closed up one brooding and alone in his cave, who had never asked his cat to move in; even the coke-snorting Owlman. Something about a Bruce who never said "Maybe I just don't like the words beloved wife and beloved husband…" it unnerved her. What was said or not said that night at the MOMA? She and her Batman had embarked on a duel in the Van Gogh room which led to a fight in the main gallery and then to the roof, to a chase down Fifth Avenue, across restaurant row, through Clinton, through the Garment District, and led finally back to her "lair" and an unprecedented, primal, visceral, earthshaking sexual encounter between Bat and Cat…

But in this world it was Bruce and Selina who wound up together that night, who woke up together the next morning. In this world, "Mrs. Wayne" wasn't going to be a punchline anymore…

…and in this world, Batman didn't need a lengthy explanation on her previous visit. Once he'd accepted her story, that was that. He had readily agreed to cancel the seeing with Dr. Luthor. He didn't need convinced. She said it was urgent and he trusted her. Just like that.

He even laughed about Felix Faust and the wand-kabob. He _laughed_ – not in the cowl at that point, but in the cave and in costume – his mouth opened, kind of curled upward on the ends into an almost-smile, and then this rhythmic puffy-grunt as he said "At least Faust had the sense to hit on the best looking woman in the room."

And the "pink sapphire" was a diamond engagement ring.

Selina really didn't know how to deal with this Batman… but there he was, sitting at the workstation just where she'd left him. Checking the countdown clock resting on that first burner …25: 20… She knew she had no time to lose, so she did exactly what _he_ would do: shoved doubt aside and focused on the task at hand. She slid a baton from the glowing _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå_, walked confidently to the workstation, and began massaging Batman's neck.

"Let me guess," she said brightly, "You're updating your Secret Society file with all the new dirt I gave you?"

He grunted – which was reassuring. Engaged or not, he was more like her Bruce than he wasn't.

"Have you called Dr. Luthor yet?" she asked.

His typing paused.

"Not yet, but I will," he graveled. "I told you I'll cancel the seeing, Selina."

"Don't. I know I urged you to, but I've been thinking and even though we both trust my memories now, even though we're both certain Zatanna didn't do anything to me, it's just as important that you don't cancel something like this just because I ask it."

"Selina, you said it would be better if I just asked you about the past, and it was. Why would I go ahead with Dr. Luthor when, as you yourself pointed out, it goes against everything I believe to use forces like that to do something that natural law says we're not meant to."

"I wasn't looking at the big picture. In terms of knowing about my past, yes, asking me is definitely the way to go. But I've come to feel that, regardless of what you believed your reason was for contacting Dr. Luthor and putting this thing together, there is something bigger at work that neither of us should interfere with. Let it play out, Bruce, exactly as you planned it."

He didn't turn, but he tapped a key dimming the computer screen before him and scrutinized her reflection until she met his eyes.

"You said a spark would ignite and there would be very bad consequences," he reminded her.

… 22:37…

Knowing precious seconds were ticking away, she held his gaze for a long moment before setting the baton on the desk next to his arm.

"It won't if you keep this with you, and when the time comes, point it to the ceiling."

… 22: 34…

* * *

This time when the vortex faded, Selina didn't need to check her finger. She knew there would be a pink sapphire resting there, she knew it would be the square emerald cut, the ring Poison Ivy returned to her because she'd apparently asked Ivy to hold the ring while she went on a post-breakup bender.

Selina knew without looking which ring she wore because that was the only "pink sapphire world" where she'd told Bruce about the alternate dimensions. She'd told him everything, and then he'd come with her to the vortex and patted her hand reassuringly before she left. He'd quoted Einstein, and he said it wasn't her job to go dimension-hopping to stop the crisis. And he was still standing in the very spot as when she left.

"You played me," she said bluntly, letting Catwoman's amused smile soften the fiery accusation in her eyes. "Einstein. It was just a way to get rid of me."

"You figured it out fast," he noted with a liptwitch.

Selina didn't bother to explain that more time had passed for her than for him – or that Batman himself had exposed the trick.

"So you had a 'kitten protocol', after all," she remarked, a note of sadness undercutting the amusement. Then she met his eyes with piercing candor. "Did you do it so you could go ahead with the Luthors?"

"Despite all you've said about the crisis in your world, all you have is a theory. There's no evidence of that here. And a seeing is the only way I can know if my Selina was altered."

"Ew!" Selina exclaimed. "Okay first, that's wrong and we'll get to that part next. But for now, before we go any further, 'altered' is not the word to use, _ever_. 'Spaying' and 'fixing' are also off-limits. Got that-Grunt-Good. Now—"

"Impossible woman," he muttered.

"'Impossible' is fine," she conceded. "Now then, it's cool to go right ahead with your Luthor hoodoo, but you've got to use one of these." She squatted down and took one of the jade batons from the _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå. _ Then she saw Bruce undergo the density shift straight past Batman to the hostile uber-intensity of PsychoBat.

"What is that?" he spat, glaring at the glowing bubble he hadn't noticed when it materialized.

Selina straightened and affixed him with a defiantly smug naughty grin.

"It's magic in your cave, Handsome. Consider it payback for the Kitten Protocol."

"Get rid of it!" he ordered.

"Don't worry, one way or another it will be gone soon. Either because this works and there's no more crisis… or because it doesn't and there's no more anything."

"I don't believe you're using magic, Selina. I thought this Zatanna possibility was as bad as it could possibly get, but the thought of you actually _conjuring_ that awful little lightball—"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Selina interrupted. "Stop going for the worst-case-scenario, would you! What've you got too much unused paranoia on your hands since Joker got chopped up? Look. Jason Blood made the bubble. Jason is who we go to for magic expertise in my world. He's earned our trust, Bruce, yours and mine. He says that this is an antenna. Take it with you to the ritual. Point it at the ceiling in the northeast corner of the study."

"Why?"

"Because that's where Zatanna materializes in the persistent anomaly I told you about. This was your idea, Bruce. Burn away the infection so the universe won't have to. This is how we do it. If I'm right, if our theory in my world is right, then the three of you going ahead with your rituals as originally planned but holding _these_, the magical forces will all converge on the strings controlling Zatanna's magic and zero them out… And if we're wrong, then you still get your seeing and can poke into your Catwoman's past 'til your heart's content. Although personally, I think you'd be better off _asking_ her when she decided to stop stealing and why. The answer will surprise you."

She silently held out the baton and Bruce stared at it for a long minute. Then his eyes flickered up and locked onto hers.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, asking you to leave."

She shook her head slowly, sympathetically but in a 'no' motion.

"Then pointing this stick at the ceiling should be a breeze. And then can you go find her, and tell her to come home. –Alfred misses Nutmeg."

"And I miss you," he said sincerely.

"Reality is already unraveling, Bruce. Don't make me be the one to say 'clock is ticking, we'll talk about this later.'"

His lip twitched into a self-deprecating half-smile, and his hand brushed against hers as he took the baton.

"Good luck," he said simply, turned, and walked briskly from the cave.

… 11: 19…

* * *

… 11:18…

… 11:17…

… 11:16…

Selina knew the countdown clock wasn't going to slow or stop to accommodate her anxiety, so she bent and retrieved the last baton from the _ßųŁŁą rħðmbå,_ took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and…

… 11:15…

… 11:14…

… 11:13…

…opened them again and regarded the baton coldly.

"I look _nothing_ like Harry Potter," she told it.

… 11:12…

… 11:11…

… 11:10…

The vortex began to gush and heave as if a volcanic force was building within it, and Selina took a last glance around the cave, searching the ceiling instinctively for one last look at a friendly living thing. One in particular caught her eye, its arms and feet stretched out so the wings actually resembled Batman's cape. Usually the cave bats only assumed that position when they were asleep, but this one's ears were perked – marvelously long and pointy – and she forced a smile.

"I look nothing like Harry Potter," she repeated – and convinced herself there was some squeak of agreement which her imagination could convert into a grunt.

… 11:01…

… 10:59…

… 10:58…

"_Okay_," she breathed at last, holding up the yagi baton one last time as the light of the vortex began to bubble and seethe like molten liquid.

… 10:56…

_Okay, you smug…_

… 10:54…

_…self-righteous… _

… 10:53…

_…parched… _

… 10:52…

_…tnuc… _

… 10:51…

… 10:50…

… 10:49…

"Now, we throw down."

… 10:48…

… 10:47…

… 10:46…

…to be continued…


	10. WON EW NWODWORHT

**String Theory  
**_Chapter 10: WON EW NWODWORHT_

* * *

Batman, Jason, Superman, Etrigan and Hella waited in study as the decimated grandfather clock miraculously reset itself and a soft, methodical ticking began, underscoring the tense silence.

"How will we know if she's succeeding?" Superman whispered to Jason Blood.

"We'll know," Batman graveled definitely.

Jason regarded Batman coldly and, as the question had been directed at him and not Bruce, he turned to Superman and answered it.

"I'm not sure there will be any perceptible signs on this plane," he said apologetically.

"We'll know," Batman repeated.

The seconds ticked by in a slow, ominous rhythm. Everyone remained still until Superman and Jason abruptly turned, as if trying to confirm a faint and not quite audible sound. Etrigan didn't say a word but calmly put his arm around Hella. The sound that wasn't exactly a sound grew more distinct.

"Is that… _music_?" Jason asked.

"It's her," Batman said, nodding towards Hella.

The noise rose to become distinctly identifiable as Hella's mindvoice, but it "sang" not with her usual monotone but as several different melodic voices, all female, softly warbling some ancient Nordic lament.

Etrigan explained:

**_"Every mortal knows  
One day he breathes his final breath.  
Not so us, these anxious woes.  
'Tis new to us, these thoughts of death."_**

"No one is going to die," Batman growled. "Selina will get there… Be ready."

The clock ticked again…ticked…ticked… until the tension got the best of Jason and he took a sharp, and sharply audible, breath. The release was contagious, and in the next second Superman echoed it. Another second ticked by, and then the edgy silence was cut by a third sharp intake of breath which made everyone start.

"Good Heavens," Alfred exclaimed as everyone turned.

"Alfred, I said stay away until I gave the all-clear," Batman graveled.

"I could not, in good conscience, sir, when the situation was clearly—"

"Never mind, there's no time now. Go to the far side of the house and stay—"

KREEEEEEEEEE

"Too late," Batman muttered as the ear-splitting wail of Canary Cry sounded just before the wall beside the clock exploded into shards as an AU chimera of Superman was hurled through it and a chimera of that world's Alfred Pennyworth, invisible a moment before, ran to his crumpled form.

"My word," the present Alfred exclaimed.

"I'll explain later," Batman said gruffly as his mind-controlled doppelganger entered through the shattered wall and crouched to attack. While Alfred gaped, the jaded observers barely registered these familiar developments. Five pairs of eyes: human, Kryptonian and demonic, all scanned the emerging scene for a single figure who might vary from the well-worn script.

After a moment, "Catwoman" – the goggled variety – came into view as she always did through the dark mist of settling rubble. She was still in the cave, at the base of the staircase now visible through the ruptured wall. She was hunched over, as always, protecting her ears from the excruciating Canary Cry… she rose, just as always… she reached for her whip, just as always… and then… then… she froze, midreach, and shuddered as her face puckered into a mute howl of outrage as she realized what she was wearing. Her whole upper body spasmed in revolted shock, and she seemed to twist in several upward half-turns, as if trying to extract herself from some clinging, stinking goo.

"That's her," Batman announced.

Green Lantern was zapping wildly around the chamber, trying to prevent Flash from reaching Despero – while Catwoman ripped the goggles off her face and flung them into the power beam. They popped into a ball of green flame before falling as a flaccid ember and then crumbling to ash as they hit the cave floor. None of the observers needed Batman's skill to read her lips clearly: "I. wore. _goggles_!"

"C'mon, C'mon," Batman urged. "Selina you're not moving where you did in the old timeline, get out of the way, _get out of the way._"

She shook herself again and dashed deeper into the cave just as Aquaman hurled a huge stone fragment at the spot where she stood. She ran past the point where the observers could see but where they knew the vortex was located.

Tense seconds passed during which Superman, then Jason, then Etrigan, and finally Hella all stole glances at Batman.

"Breathe," Superman suggested.

"We could never see beyond what's visible from this room," he said tersely. "We don't know what she's up against back there. She could—"

At that moment, she was hurled back into view with what looked to be Martian Manhunter coiled around her thigh and Flash around his. They landed in an unseemly ball, from which Catwoman was the first to emerge, stabbing Flash with jagged shards of purple glass. He seemed to be apologizing, he was trying to protect her, but his protests were cut short by another "chain" of hurdling heroes, this time Black Canary, Green Arrow, Aquaman, and a sizable chunk of the display case containing Jason Todd's costume.

Catwoman marched furiously up from the cave and into the study, as heedless of the airborne energy beams, batarangs, and heroes as she was in her own reality where these were formless phantoms. For one unable to see into their world, she judged admirably where the half circle of observers would be standing in the study and waved the shards of broken glass furiously at them, mouthing a single name distinctly: "JASON!" She happened to be standing directly in front of Etrigan as she said it, and he gestured with a gamely grin for Blood to take this one himself, by all means.

"MARTIAN— JACKASS— BROKE— THE— WITCH— ORB" Catwoman mouthed distinctly.

In the chaos of the battle, none of the Justice League seemed to notice the one non-participant removing herself from the melee. Only Despero turned to watch the deranged woman waving her arms at nothing like a South American dictator haranguing an imaginary populace.

"Jason, do something," Batman hissed.

"Яέςŧįŧůo φŗБιs," Jason Blood decreed, and Catwoman started as the fragments in her hand quivered and rose, flashing white, and then floating for a split second as a reconstituted whole before dropping heavy again into her hand. She offered a grateful smile-shrug before being flung into the wall by the backlash of a green energy mace aimed at Flash.

The Batman of the present flinched, the instinct to act colliding fullspeed with the rational knowledge that there was nothing he could do. Jason was able to affect that world, he was able to repair the orb for her, but all Bruce could do was stand helpless and watch while the woman he loved was in danger. Mind, body and soul all _screamed_ for him to do something, but there was nothing, literally _nothing_ he could possibly… No one but Clark noticed the flinch, and he silently placed a hand on Bruce's shoulder.

In the throes of the energy beam, Catwoman wrapped and twisted her body swiftly around the orb, hoping to shield the fragile ball from the impact, but causing her back to hit the wall with a force she clearly didn't expect. She seemed dazed for a moment, then shook it off and turned her attention to the orb she was cradling – and her face creased again into that lemon-pucker of disgust.

"THIS WOMAN HAS NO TITS!" she mouthed in distinctly outraged contempt—

—And the Bruce of the present let out a thankful breath. That she could still rant about her appearance in the face of all that chaos and turmoil…

While her outburst had no more sound than the rest of the anomaly in the here and now, it was clearly audible in Catwoman's reality, for Green Arrow froze mid-swing and turned to her in disbelief – permitting Batman to smash him in the back of the head with a brass bookend. His opponent vanquished, he turned his attention to Catwoman, as Martian Manhunter swung Superman into a headlock.

"It's begun," Jason muttered. "If she can't get into position because of Batman's… _attentions_, this could be exceedingly—"

"She can do it," Batman declared with calm certainty.

As if to validate his words, Catwoman's hip, back and shoulder dipped as one, undulating in a graceful waving motion that seemed to both yield to Batman's aggressive attack and blend with it, sending him sliding over her onto Green Arrow's crumpled mass, while Despero lifted Hawkman by the throat and yanked the wings from his back in a single vicious stroke.

"My favorite part," Catwoman's mouthed, squirming out of the way before Batman could rise. "Now cue the clock," she said, racing to get to her mark.

As he had every 43 minutes since the anomalies began, Hawkman picked up the grandfather clock and brought it crashing down onto Batman's head. Batman answered with a fierce uppercut… and Catwoman reached her position by the bookcase.

"Big red robot," she said, extracting the yagi baton from her sleeve just as Red Tornado entered.

"Superman," she breathed, sliding her finger through the little circle in the base of the witch orb and then holding it high over her head, eying the spot where the claw-footed table would rest if it hadn't been blasted into splinters.

_"ßųŁŁą Îģήσŧųş," _Jason Blood murmured quietly in the present. _"ßųŁŁą Îģήσŧųş ĄſſıЯшσ et ąđЯogaήŧia… _May it be enough to shield you, child.

Superman charged—as always… _Catwoman's heart pounded.  
_Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman and Black Canary fell on Red Tornado— as always… _Her heart pounded.  
_Despero grabbed Superman, and the room yellowed with the glow of his telepathic mind-beam… And Catwoman's heart _pounded_ as she brought the yagi baton into alignment with the witch orb, holding it as low as possible, so a perfect arc might form from the claw-footed table through the orb and into the baton, an arc which would pass directly through the spot where—

—A spark of pink-white fire exploded—

—and Zatanna materialized, hovering grandly over the room.

"POTS!" Zatanna ordered —and the room erupted into a rainbow of sizzling coils of snaking, snapping lightbeams. A trio of twisting funnel energy sprung into being at the point where, in other worlds, the claw-footed table still stood un-obliterated. It thrust in an upward arc towards the ceiling, warping around Zatanna in a cocoon of glowing energy, and arced back down into the yagi baton held by Catwoman, jolting her into a rigid stance as one paralyzed by a high voltage shock. Both her arms, the right holding the witch orb aloft, the left holding the yagi baton low, shook with the magical voltage surging between the two objects, and she winced and squinted from the unexpected heat of the lighting-like energy. The effect coursing up her arms was akin to a powerful and constantly shifting recoil, as if she was holding high-pressure hoses in place with unimaginable energies gushing through.

One of the snapping snakeheads of energy whipping free of the main arc passed through Hawkman's severed wings, igniting a smoky, smoldering flame that none of the leaguers, mind-controlled or free, seemed to notice. Everyone's attention was riveted on Zatanna, her body contorting wildly in the honeycomb of energy thrashing and crackling around her.

Sounds began to bleed into the present reality, the crackling of the beams in the anomaly, a baby crying, Bruce's voice "No no, I like going," and then in an entirely different tone of voice "How about blue," morphing finally into a pained murmur "You're hurt. You lost a lot of blood…" Selina's voice answered "Not that much" "But you just got back from patrol…" "A crimefighter with a purse? I don't think so, Stud." "I wasn't sleeping. I heard the whole thing. Bruce, what in god's name is going on with you and the League?"

Superman jumped back as the ghostly chimeras of other Bruce Waynes folded and unfolded in the space in front of him, one in the batsuit, one not. Each were seated at the claw-footed table across from – Superman blinked – a variety of figures that faded in and out of visibility but all of which bore an unsettling resemblance to Lex Luthor.

"I knew it was true, but I don't think I really believed it," he muttered, inaudible over the rising noise level.

"Hella," Jason said, straining to be heard as Selina's scream from the original seeing joined the other sounds rising in a whirlpool of strangely ordered chaos. "Hella," He repeated, then paused tersely. "…Be ready…"

Superman explained quickly to Alfred, "When Zatanna's power is gone, the crisis is presumably ended and our ability to see into this reality would cease. Hella's job is to hold the visual portal open from that point on."

Despero – like everyone – was momentarily distracted by Zatanna's arrival and the resulting pyrotechnics. But he recovered himself quickly and returned his attention to Superman, captive in his clutches. Deciding that whatever the explosive arc of energy was, he'd rather face it with Superman in his power, he resumed his effort to take control of Superman's mind.

"Etrigan, quickly," Jason prompted.

But before the demon could speak, the telepathic beam appeared again from Despero's third eye. But instead of blasting into Superman's forehead as before, it shot off-course at a sharp angle, tilting sideways away from Superman and across the room into the yagi baton. Everyone in the present reality gasped as the beam hit the baton and Catwoman contorted from the force of the hit. She struggled to keep her balance as the new force flowed directly into the baton, while the energy flow from Zatanna continued to be drawn, somewhat more erratically, into the baton by way of the orb. More snake-like wisps began striking out from the main beams and snapping randomly around the room, and Catwoman strained to keep the orb positioned between the baton and the Zatanna beams.

In the present reality, the sound increased, the extra power vibrating through the room like a giant generator. Batman took one look at Catwoman, struggling to keep control of the power coursing around her, and he threw all logic aside. He leaped across the room toward her, braced himself right behind where she stood and tried to wrap his arms around her, trying to provide additional support, to add his strength to hers… _anything_ to somehow help her out. Of course, his hands passed through her as if she was a ghost and he stumbled to the side.

Superman was instantly beside him and grabbed his shoulders, half-keeping him from falling and half-holding him back from trying that again. Surprisingly, Batman accepted the hold, instantly realizing the futility of his attempt. With just a hint of desperation creeping onto his face, he turned to Jason.

"Despero's an _alien_," Batman barked, "His power is from the Flame of Py'tar on his world; it isn't magic. That shouldn't be happening—"

"Etrigan quickly," Jason repeated. "Bruce, it may not be what you classify as magic, but it is _power_ driven by _will_. That is essentially magic. The yagi baton seems to think so."

"DO SOMETHING!" he ordered.

**_Not impressed am I, thus far.  
The Flames of Hell trump  
The Flame of Py'tar…  
_****_Chump._**

The beam of light from Despero's eye dissolved instantly into nothingness.

In the present reality, Superman whispered to Batman, "Power driven by will. Bruce, that means if Hal uses his ring, it would be drawn into the baton the same way. She can't possibly handle it."

Bruce flinched again and felt Superman's hands squeeze gently on his shoulder, more in a comforting gesture than anything else. "I know," he rasped.

**_Now still the blood of Kalanor.  
And Will to cag'ed minds restore._**

Despero stiffened and froze where he stood, and the mind-controlled leaguers shook their heads in confusion. Etrigan smiled smugly and posed for Hella, flexing his muscles.

Catwoman repositioned, clearly relieved by the minor improvement in her situation but still struggling to keep control of the orb and baton while the original power beams thickened and glowed whiter. The free wisps and tendrils grew fewer and the light burned redder and thickened more – then bluer as the last snapping wisps joined the main arc – and finally the light beams blushed into a full, rich purple.

The cacophony of layered sound fell away.

With effort, Catwoman slowly brought her arm holding the yagi baton up and over her head, until at last she could bring it into contact with the witch orb. The instant the baton touched the orb, Zatanna's body arched violently backward until her head nearly touched her heels, then she snapped right and left within the glowing web of purple light, like a tree branch twisting in brutal gale-force winds. Despite the physical strain of maintaining her position, the corner of Catwoman's lip curled upward into the subtlest of feline smiles. She hissed – and all the observers started – for that one sound echoed, clear and distinct and unnaturally loud, from the otherwise muted anomaly. All other sound had ceased the moment the arc-light went purple, a slight re-pressurization had pulsed in everyone's ears at the sudden eerie silence – and now before anyone could process what was happening, that _hiss_, feline and feral, sliced the silence - nature herself unleashing her wild, untamable scorn and her final, unappealable judgment.

As one, Zatanna, Catwoman, and Hella jerked and the purple arc of light blinked into nothingness.

"It is done," Hella said, a harsh strain deepening her normally dead monotone. "The window into this world would close but for my hand that holds it open. Speak, Dark Mortal, when thou hast seen thy fill, and thy home and manor shall be thine once more. Of here and now alone and tainted by no other prospect. One world and one truth, one—"

"Shh, later," Batman spat, watching the anomaly intently as Catwoman slunk towards the corner while the recovering Leaguers clustered around Zatanna.

"Jason, it worked?" Superman asked urgently. "They didn't see what she did?"

"The spell I cast is called _ßųŁŁą Îģήσŧųş," _Jason said, watching the Leaguers as critically as Batman was, seeking any clue as to their precise state of mind. "A spell of validation, if you will, obscuring that which would contradict this League's pride, and allowing them to see only that which affirms their worldview."

"And since it's inconceivable to this League that they've been cosmic outlaws and that it would fall on Catwoman to save the situation by stripping one of their own of her powers…" Superman mused.

"They never saw it," Jason concluded. "They seem to believe it was Zatanna who stopped Despero, just as before."

They watched as the League argued among themselves.

"It's not inconceivable to all of them," Bruce noted gravely. "That world's Batman, J'onn and Wally all looked her way in the first moments after Despero was frozen. Batman and J'onn were still shaking off his influence, and whatever they glimpsed they evidently attributed to that. Wally I'm not so sure. He's glanced at her a couple times, but then he realized they're playing 'settle the dust' and redirected his attention to the League proper – for now."

The cluster of heroes blocked the clock passage and the cave beyond, making it impossible for Catwoman to reach the vortex unnoticed. Instead, she ducked quietly behind Bruce's desk. In the present reality, Batman stood closest to the desk and watched with some amusement as she opened the drawer "through" the space occupied by his leg, and quietly stashed the orb inside it. Then she backed quietly away to tend to Alfred as her double had always done.

The Batman of the present calmly opened the drawer, and there sat the orb.

"Zatanna's magic," Jason said. "Take it quickly. For Selina's safety and ours, it cannot be removed too swiftly from the vicinity. Pennyworth, if you would, as quickly as may be, take this item to some distant part of the house –not the cave, for these Leaguers may yet return there. Take it to a part of the house that is private and little used."

Alfred nodded and did as he was asked, hesitating for only a moment at the door to regard Catwoman helping his otherworldly twin to his feet.

* * *

"Little help here," Catwoman said – as she knew her goggled double always had at this point in the proceedings to announce her presence. In fact, she spoke a little sooner than the double did, but she was so infuriated by what she was hearing, she wanted to make sure she was in the conversation before Zatanna attempted to poof out. She had witnessed this scene countless times in the anomaly: the League clustered around Zatanna, the gestures, the hair toss, so she knew exactly when Zatanna planned to depart. But _hearing_ the words that went with the pointing and headshakes—

"I used magic to stop him and rid you all of his influence. I didn't ask for your _permission_ or for a show of _hands_."

—The italicized barbs directed so pointedly at Batman. Even though this wasn't her Bruce and she knew nothing of him, it made Selina's blood boil. She wondered if the "rule of three" about using magic to inflict harm applied to non-magically shoving a yagi baton down someone's throat. Or up their—

Whatever. She had to do something. So she jostled her shoulder to support Alfred's weight and spoke.

"Little help here," she repeated, a little louder this time.

Batman turned to her, concerned, and spoke on cue.

"You're both wounded, here let me—"

"Your rug is on fire," she pointed out coolly, interrupting just as her counterpart always had, but undoubtedly with different words.

"And now I have some unfinished business to attend to," Zatanna announced importantly behind him.

"Rug is on fire," Catwoman repeated, though no one but Alfred was listening to her.

"You mean the Secret Society," Batman spat, wheeling back on Zatanna.

"Hawkman's wings, been smoldering on the floor there for a couple minutes now," Selina pointed out to Alfred. "Just sprouted a little red flame…"

"I created this mess, Batman," Zatanna said, clearly building to a big exit line.

"…and is quietly devouring the Aubusson carpet while these idiots stand around belaboring the obvious…"

"ll'I naelc ti pu," Zatanna concluded.

Absolutely nothing happened following Zatanna's incantation, and an apprehensive silence fell over the Justice League while Catwoman's voice continued on, filing the silence with calm felinity.

"…which is either an elegant metaphor, an amusing irony, a tragic irony, or infuriating as hell. I wore goggles so you can guess how I'm inclined to see it."

"ll'I naelc ti pu," Zatanna repeated, slower and a bit louder.

"Hey Spitcurl, somebody with ice vision, cold breath," Catwoman suggested.

Flash looked at her piercingly.

"…or maybe a pitcher of water," she added, treating him to a coy smile.

"ll'I naelc ti pu," Zatanna said again, distinctly.

"Zee, what's wrong?" Green Lantern asked, concerned.

"Traped," she said, and then when nothing happened, "I don't know. TRAPED. TIXE. OG."

"Not gonna work, honey," Catwoman said sweetly, offering a nodding salute with the baton as she turned to the door with a cheery. "G'night everybody, try the veal."

"Catwoman wait," Batman called abruptly, as did Flash.

"The rest of you can show yourselves out," Batman added hatefully, glaring at Flash.

"Zee, seriously, is this for real," Green Arrow was saying.

"My wings are on fire," Hawkman declared, standing over the smoldering remains.

"You guys are so screwed," Catwoman muttered, as Superman finally put out the fire.

"I evael won," Zatanna declared.

Catwoman leaned in and spoke confidentially to Batman, "The AA definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, exactly the same way, and expecting a different result."

Although she had spoken softly, Superman turned slowly toward her and Batman, and she acknowledged that he was listening by making her next comment in a normal tone of voice and speaking pointedly in his direction. "And much as I would _love_ to stick around for Step 4: 'Making a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourselves' (and god help you all on Step 8 'Making a list of all persons you've harmed and making amends'), _I wore goggles. _I wore goggles and this _idiotic biker chick getup in which I have no goddamn tits._ So rather than stick around for what I'm sure will be the best bloody dinner theatre since the Roxy/Ivy catfight, I'm going home for a full fucking **_bodypeel_**!"

She turned and stormed towards the door, waving off Batman on the one side and Green Arrow on the other with a venomous "Nobody fucking touch me, I wore GOGGLES!"

"NAMOWTAC POTS!" Zatanna called out.

"AAARRRGGGHHH", Catwoman screamed, never breaking stride. The frustrated wail grew fainter, fainter, and was then punctuated by the violent slamming of the front door.

* * *

"That didn't look good," Jason observed, noting Catwoman's muted but impassioned exit.

"No," Batman concurred.

In the battle-torn study of the anomaly, the usually sound plaster rained a thin sprinkling of dust down onto the Justice League in response to Catwoman's vicious door-slam.

"Out the front door," Superman noted in the present, lightly directing focus from the phantom-League's embarrassment. "How will she—"

"Get back to the cave?" Batman completed the thought, "Around to the rose garden, past the conservatory and down through the Batmobile entrance. The rate she's going, it will take her about 5 minutes."

"I see. We should wait until she's safely back before closing the portal," Superman suggested.

Batman grunted and Hella nodded; then she looked around curiously.

"Where is Etrigan?" she asked in her usual monotone.

Jason shut his eyes, as if a heavy, painful weight had settled again on his shoulders.

"He is… in the dining room, he followed Alfred to the dining room. I can sense him. The magic shackles that bind our souls are back in place. Though he is still free physically in this world, we are joined again as we were before. Once either of us speaks the incantation, it will be as it was."

"Jason, I'm sorry," Superman said sincerely.

"Don't be. A world where Etrigan runs free is… not something you want to experience, certainly not a world to have risked what we have risked in order to preserve."

"POTS she says!" they heard, distant but distinct in the cave. "Cause when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything you see as a nail. Smug, self-righteous – 'I made this mess,' she says – Sure fucking did, sweetheart, and I had to wear east end gutter trash goggles to clean it up – POTS my sweet purple ass, you parched…"

Batman nodded curtly at Hella, and she lowered her hands, closing her eyes. She pursed her lips and blew a wispy glowing mist which slowly filled the room.

Catwoman's voice grew louder as she crossed the cave and approached the stairs to the study.

"…Like to see how you're gonna manage now, Cupcake. Learn to drive or take the bus. Pay 85 for a shampoo and set then get caught in the rain and ruin it, heh. Iron a wine stain into your favorite blouse. And oh yes, in at least one reality the almost-wife of the richest man in the country would like to ruin your life. Good luck with that one…."

The remaining Leaguers and the physical debris of their anomaly dissolved into nothingness as it came into contact with the white filmy mist, and Catwoman's voice, which had been growing steadily louder, now grew softer—

"…Only booking you'll be getting for the next 5 years is the Turtle Spirit Indian Casino in Bottleneck North Dakota – opening for Tina Yothers…"

— as the mist reached the clock passage and the wall separating study from cave passage solidified.

Almost immediately after the clock reset itself into physical reality, it clicked and opened, and Catwoman stepped through. She glared around the room, exuding a fierce and feral hostility, so much so that, as her eyes landed on Superman and then Batman, one could almost envision a wildcat angrily thumping her tail, riling for a fight.

"Gentlemen," she snapped with quiet irritation. "Your League sucks."

"khm, well," Superman coughed, as if to move on to a new subject.

"Welcome back, Selina," Jason said mildly.

_˜˜And well done, Sister,˜˜_ Hella's mindvoice added.

Catwoman said nothing in reply but merely stared, intently, at Batman. A tense, silent moment stretched into two, then five, then nine.

Superman coughed and nodded toward the door. Jason and Hella filed out awkwardly, while the grandfather clock ticked, ominously underscoring the complete absence of any other sound in the room. Superman fell into line behind Hella, glanced back for a split second at Batman and Catwoman, and then left the two alone. The moment hung suspended in the icy stillness of a Gotham rooftop. And then—

Selina lunged forward and threw her arms fiercely around Batman's waist, burying her face between his neck and shoulder.

"It's okay, Kitten," he whispered into her hair. "It's over. You're home."

She hugged him tighter but said nothing. After a long moment, he began softly rubbing her back, and at last she spoke.

"I wore goggles," she managed weakly.

"I know. But they're gone now."

"Awful black-zip-biker outfit."

"You're purple again," he assured her.

"And no hair. Short awful hair."

He silently stroked the long curly locks that poured out the back of her cowl.

"And I was like an A-cup," she moaned.

"You're fine now," he noted.

"Double-A," she said.

"You saved the world, Selina."

"Like the battery," she sobbed.

He shifted his weight, very slightly, producing the effect of a gentle rocking. Through this comforting motion, Selina felt his chest rumble with the rhythmic puffy-grunt which marked that alternate Batman's laugh. Selina's half of the embrace began to vibrate with a weary chuckle as she thought about that laugh and the subject which provoked it in the other world: Felix Faust and the wand-kabob.

"Well" she said finally, pulling back with a tired smile, "That's it for me and the cosmic FUBARs. Next time anything needs saving, Spitcurl can go. —Say, do you think his heat vision would be capable of some kind of low level laser-graft skin peel? I think I could just about live with him seeing me naked to get that top level of skincells that touched the ick–gogglesuit burned away all at once."

He stared as he used to when she made some rooftop proposition and he couldn't tell if she was serious. Realizing it was better to play along than mutely gape, he permitted himself a lip-twitch as he said:

"He does owe me a favor."

"You _all_ owe _me_ a favor," Selina said archly. "I wore goggles." She shuddered and then sighed, "Guess I'll settle for a very long, very hot shower."

She turned towards the door, pulling off her cowl as she did, and then froze, almost as if belatedly hit with Zatanna's parting POTS. She turned back and regarded Batman thoughtfully.

"By the way," she said tenderly. "Just in case _you_ were thinking along the same lines as those other Bruce Waynes, wondering… _worrying…_ if Zatanna had done anything to change me?"

She walked up to him and softly tapped the side of his cowl, indicating clearly that it should be removed. He hesitated for a split second, then took it off.

"I know Zatanna had nothing to do with my choice to stop stealing, Bruce, for the same reason you knew the logs were wrong. You change someone's thoughts, you have to put something new in place of the old, right? And you can only do that convincingly if you know and understand who they are. You had a chunk of time where your memories just weren't you. You were Zatanna's idea of you: a flighty, shallow, middleclass, less-educated, less-sophisticated nitwit's idea of 'Batman.' Well as little as they understand you, m'love, that League of yours haven't any clue whatsoever about me."

She paused, awaiting some grunt of acknowledgement. When it didn't come, she continued.

"Do you know when I made the decision to stop stealing, Bruce?"

"After the Mad Hatter affair," he graveled definitely.

She shook her head no.

"No, not the last actual theft, but the choice. When I stopped at first, it was 'for now.' It wasn't a life choice. I was _dating_ _Batman_ and that was complicated enough without running into each other at Tiffany's after hours. So I tapered off. But it wasn't… it wasn't what you thought, what I let you think. It wasn't a conscious decision that the last thing I took was the last thing I would ever take. Not until Halloween that second year, not until that costume store, Come As You're Not."

His eyes drilled into hers, darting back and forth from her right to her left as the bat-'density shift' rose and fell, intensifying then dropping out completely as never before.

"I don't understand," he said finally.

"You came to lunch that day at d'Annunzio's with news about the folklore museum," Selina said gently. "The Sherlock Holmes exhibit, a costume party to kick it off… I'd never seen you like that. You were so excited. Right after lunch we went to get costumes. The store was called 'Come As You're Not', and you went ahead of me into the big warehouse they had in the back…" she paused, surprised at how her heart and breathing quickened as she spoke. "When I got back there, I walked through the door… and there you were, collecting pieces for a Sherlock Holmes costume. You'd just found a tweed jacket. You were so— It was so completely _YOU_, and at the same time it was so unlike any part of you I had ever seen and I— I… It just hit me. How I loved you, how deep I was in. This was it; this was my life now. And that was that."

"Does that really strike you as something Miss Tophat-and-Fishnets could have invented?"

A warm silence passed between them for a few breathless seconds and then he finally spoke.

"No."

"Meow." She smiled. "Now that we've got that cleared up, I'm going to take that shower."

* * *

…to be concluded…


	11. Epilogue

**String Theory  
**_Epilogue_

* * *

In the Batcave, Batman watched intently as Hella laid out a gauzy fabric on his worktable, and ran her fingertips over it until it glowed with runic symbols that burned themselves into the surface with an eerie incandescence.

Jason set the witch orb in its center.

"Magick is power driven by will," he pronounced formally. "As the witch orb is meant to trap any ill-intentioned spirits within the webwork of its interior, so does it hold fast the Magicks of Zatara, so ill-used by Zatanna that the Universal Is has revoked its right of existence. We return this power to the Cosmos from whence it came."

He placed the three oil burners on the cloth around the orb in the same way they had circled Selina's feet in the JLA transporter.

"Cats were guardians in the ancient temples," he declared. "Let these nine who have so nobly guarded the portal between realities, between what is and what might have been, follow this accursed Magick of Zatara to the brink of oblivion, and there stand sentinel at the gates of existence, that this which should have never come into being, that is hereby nullified and expunged from existence, may ne'er have hope of rebirth or reinvention."

He nodded to Etrigan.

**_Gone, Gone from World of Man,  
By Earth and Hell, forever damned.  
Order, Chaos, Good and Ill  
Unite in Magick and in Will  
To banish this which stilled the String  
And so endangered Everything.  
Gone, Gone, from Here and Now  
That which crossed the cosmic Tao;  
Never shalt thou be again,  
So speaks the Demon Etrigan._**

Jason wordlessly gathered up the cloth and its contents and flung it into the vortex. Hella waved her arm abruptly, and the vortex collapsed to the size of a manhole… to a teacup… to a thimble… to a pinhead… and then nothing.

Superman let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. And Jason turned calmly to Batman.

"You may rest easy tonight, Bruce," he said flatly. "There is no more magick in your house."

"There won't be once you take this back with you," Batman croaked, holding out a small silver object.

"The moonstone ring I gave Selina," Jason noted coldly, eying it without making any move to take it.

**_"May I?"_** Etrigan asked, reaching to take the ring from Batman's glove, his eyes shifting subtly towards Hella. **_"To say goodbye,"_** he explained.

Batman grunted, and Etrigan took the ring and withdrew with Hella to the far side of the cave. There was a sharp snap as Superman closed his JLA communicator.

"She was onstage," he announced. "There was an elephant supposed to vanish. It didn't."

"I won't lose sleep over it," Batman growled.

"Nor will I," Jason affirmed. "Nor I expect will Selina."

"I wish I could be so sure," Clark said resignedly. "How exactly is what we did any different than the inner League's transgressions, hm? You're both sleeping fine tonight because we 'had a good reason,' because we were saving the world? Zatanna had it coming, I guess you figure, like they decided Dr. Light had it coming. How are we different, Jason? Bruce? Tell me."

"We didn't _decide_ anything, Superman. We made no judgment about Zatanna's fitness to wield power, even though her abuse of it brought us all to the brink of extinction. The Universe itself determined that her abilities should not exist. And even at that it was not a judgment or punishment, it was an immune response."

"Jason, Selina used magic to strip away Zatanna's powers."

"If you break your leg, Superman, a doctor will set it so the bones may mend properly, but it is the body itself, not the doctor, which does the actual healing. All we did was set the leg so the Universe might heal itself. Selina placed antenna so the magicks could do what they were meant to without being pulled off course by Lex Luthor. She did not wield magic herself – except perhaps— well, not really," he broke off chuckling at some private joke.

"Except?" Batman asked archly.

"Except perhaps?" Superman prompted.

"Oh it's nothing," Jason laughed. "It's just that when she returned, she was, eh, 'ranting' I guess you would call it, rather heatedly, about Zatanna's future sans powers. Paying 85 for a haircut and having it ruined, etc. It's simply that, to a magic-user, to emote in such a fashion when she hates Zatanna so passionately – well, magick as I said is driven by _will_ and… Let's just say the 'Turtle Spirit Indian Casino in Bottleneck North Dakota' was the most frightfully gleeful hexing incantation I've heard since the Red Witch of Eirog got drunk on brandywine."

* * *

In the corner of the Wayne bedroom, beneath the curio packed with cat figurines, Selina sat at her vanity studiously brushing her hair. Bruce came up behind her and met her eyes in the mirror.

"That's three hours, Kitten. Even Whiskers is impressed. Grooming on that scale, I imagine even _Bast_ sits up and takes notice."

"Just reassuring myself that it's still long," she said.

His lip twitched.

"It's long, and it's lovely. Now put down the brush, please."

She did and turned to face him, smiling sadly, as he sat opposite her, on the edge of the bed.

"You had a rough day," he noted. "I know the goggles, and the hair, and the black…" he gestured with his hand in a pointless twirling motion, a helpless man stymied for words about a woman's clothing.

"The zipup-guttertrash-bikerchick outfit," Selina pronounced, like Poison Ivy rattling off the formal Latin name of an obscure strain of ragweed.

"Yes, that," Bruce nodded tactfully. "I know none of that helped. I just… It wasn't easy for me either."

"I know," she said sympathetically. "Magic in your house."

"No, that I got past," he said lightly. "Considering everything else that was at stake."

"Well that's the creepiest anomaly so far," she replied, raising her eyebrow. "You're _okay_ with it? We can start inviting Jason over for afternoon tea and weekly séances?"

He grunted.

She smirked.

And for the first time in days, something within the walls of Wayne Manor actually felt normal.

"Not the magic" Bruce said seriously. "The part that killed me was standing on the sideline while you were in there, in danger. Selina, it was– Everything that I've– Since we started, you and I, every fear that I – damnit."

"Let me try," she interjected with a knowing smile. "Bruce, I can't get to sleep when I know you're out there battling Joker. There. I've said it. I'm cool with everything else Bat, but when Joker's involved, I can't quite make my peace with it. But what can you do, it goes with the package."

He grunted.

"Well anyway," he said, an uncharacteristic hesitation in his manner, "It won't be a regular occurrence. As you've said yourself, many times, the 'hero thing' really isn't 'your kink'…"

After an Owlman, twin Dr. Luthors, the Rydbergii Lounge, 5 alternate Batmen and an engagement ring, Selina was able to control her smirk. Bruce struggled on.

"It did seem like, after all you went through to 'steal the necklace,' you should wind up with something… tangible." He reached behind his back, producing a long, flat box in familiar, but worn, red leather with gold leaf trim.

Selina reached out and touched the top of the box tentatively with a fingertip, running her finger lightly across the slight scratches in the leather and looking questioningly at Bruce.

"Take it," he urged, uncertainly, after a strained moment. "It's 'your kink'," he added, in a surer, deeper gravel.

She managed a timidly naughty grin, took the box into her lap and, with a final glance at Bruce, opened it.

"Oh my-meow-my… oh…" she breathed.

"Canary diamonds," Bruce pointed out. "Surrounded by white. It's, the setting might be, I don't know, kind of old-fashioned. It was my grandmother's. But it's so close to what you described—"

"It's perfect," Selina said simply.

"It's yours. They would all be yours if I had- if I… There are emeralds too, from some Aunt Elena, color of your eyes. If I was able to—"

"Let's not do that," Selina interrupted softly. "If this, if that, if I, if you… This whole thing has been too many what-ifs. We are what we are. It was true then," she pointed superficially at the necklace. "It's true now. It works in its way, the occasional alternate reality Justice League and Joker-patrol sleepless night not withstanding."

He smiled sadly, then reluctantly grunted. Selina touched her finger to the largest diamond in the necklace and continued.

"It is beautiful, Bruce – purrrrrrfect in fact," she rolled out the word in a luxurious burr, clearly for his pleasure as much as hers, then she resumed a less-feline manner, "But stunning as this necklace is, what I really need is to get away for a while. From this house, from Gotham, from all of it."

He reached into his pocket and wordlessly pulled out a slip of paper.

"Wayne One is fueling up now," he said crisply. "Xanadu has Bungalow 4 waiting for you and plenty of pickled ginger on hand to make your special martinis. You can look forward to two weeks of continuous pampering on a level few women in the world have ever experienced."

Selina burst out laughing.

"You don't do anything by halves, do you Stud?" she purred through merry chuckles, then breathed deeply. "I do appreciate the gesture, Bruce; really I do. Appealing as the thought is of a cream and honey wrap, followed by a hot stone massage or crystal or diamonds or whatever they're using this month, and then a little snack of those giant raspberries… delicious as that all sounds, what I _really_ want more than _anything_ is a few days of _you_."

Bruce shifted his finger, revealing a second slip of paper folded behind the first.

"I can't leave Gotham for two weeks, but I'll come for the first few days, get you settled in."

She breathed.

"Feel free to meow or something," Bruce said brusquely.

She stared.

"Selina?"

"Meow," she blurted as if expelling a long-held breath. "Wow… You are full of surprises."

"Consider it a new 'Kitten Protocol,'" he twitched. "To save the sweaters."

* * *

© Chris Dee, 2006

-- — -- — -- -- — -- — -- -- — -- — --  
"_The Universe is having a great deal of fun at my expense right now,  
and when all this is over, somebody better make it up to me."_  
That's what Selina said; we'll see if the Universe was listening in  
**THE GOTHAM POST**

But first…  
"_Reality has nothing to do with appearances, with your narrow way of seeing.  
Reality is love expressed, pure perfect love, unbrushed by space and time."  
_There are a lot of Gothamites to catch up with next time in  
**FORTUNE COOKIES**  
-- — -- — -- -- — -- — -- -- — -- — --

Cat-Tales will celebrate its 5th Anniversary in March, 2006.  
Visit the website linked on my author page for all the details.


End file.
